France was dying, and Chamillard was by no means a stranger to the cause.  Louis XIV. put in his place Voysin, former superintendent of Hainault, entirely devoted to Madame de Maintenon.  He loaded with benefits the minister from whom he was parting, the only one whom he had really loved.  The troops were destitute of everything.  On assuming the command of the army of the Low Countries, Villars wrote in despair, “Imagine the horror of seeing an army without bread!  There was none delivered to-day until the evening, and very late.  Yesterday, to have bread to serve out to the brigades I had ordered to march, I made those fast that remained behind.  On these occasions I pass along the ranks, I coax the soldier, I speak to him in such a way as to make him have patience, and I have had the consolation of hearing several of them say, ’The marshal is quite right; we must suffer sometimes.’ ‘Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie’ (give us this day our daily bread), the men say to me as I go through the ranks; it is a miracle how we subsist, and it is a marvel to see the steadiness and fortitude of the soldier in enduring hunger; habit is everything; I fancy, however, that the habit of not eating is not easy to acquire.”

In spite of such privations and sufferings, Villars found the army in excellent spirits, and urged the king to permit him to give battle.  “M. de Turenne used to say that he who means to altogether avoid battle gives up his country to him who appears to seek it,” the marshal assured him; the king was afraid of losing his last army; the Dukes of Harcourt and Berwick were covering the Rhine and the Alps; Marlborough and Prince Eugene, who had just made themselves masters of Tournay, marched against Villars, whom they encountered on the 11th of September, 1709, near the hamlet of Malplaquet.  Marshal Boufflers had just reached the army to serve as a volunteer.  Villars had intrenched himself in front of the woods; his men were so anxious to get under fire, that they threw away the rations of bread just served out; the allies looked sulkily at the works.  “We are going to fight moles again,” they said.

There was a thick fog, as at Lutzen; the fighting went on from seven in the morning till midday.  Villars had yielded the right wing, by way of respect, to Bouffiers as his senior, says the allies’ account, but the general command nevertheless devolved entirely upon him.  “At the hottest of the engagement, the marshal galloped furiously to the centre attacked by Prince Eugene.  It was a sort of jaws of hell, a pit of fire, sulphur, and saltpetre, which it seemed impossible to approach and live.  One shot and my horse fell,” says Villars.  “I jumped up, and a second broke my knee; I had it bandaged on the spot, and myself placed in a chair to continue giving my orders, but the pain caused a fainting-fit which lasted long enough for me to be carried off without consciousness to Quesnoy.”  The Prince of Hesse, with the imperial cavalry, had