Fortunately about this time a discovery was made which furnished both the camp at Lambeque and the coffeehouses of London with a subject of conversation much less agreeable to the Jacobites than the disaster of Steinkirk.

A plot against the life of William had been, during some months, maturing in the French War Office.  It should seem that Louvois had originally sketched the design, and had bequeathed it, still rude, to his son and successor Barbesieux.  By Barbesieux the plan was perfected.  The execution was entrusted to an officer named Grandval.  Grandval was undoubtedly brave, and full of zeal for his country and his religion.  He was indeed flighty and half witted, but not on that account the less dangerous.  Indeed a flighty and half witted man is the very instrument generally preferred by cunning politicians when very hazardous work is to be done.  No shrewd calculator would, for any bribe, however enormous, have exposed himself to the fate of Chatel, of Ravaillac, or of Gerarts.314

Grandval secured, as he conceived, the assistance of two adventurers, Dumont, a Walloon, and Leefdale, a Dutchman.  In April, soon after William had arrived in the Low Countries, the murderers were directed to repair to their post.  Dumont was then in Westphalia.  Grandval and Leefdale were at Paris.  Uden in North Brabant was fixed as the place where the three were to meet and whence they were to proceed together to the headquarters of the allies.  Before Grandval left Paris he paid a visit to Saint Germains, and was presented to James and to Mary of Modena.  “I have been informed,” said James, “of the business.  If you and your companions do me this service, you shall never want.”

After this audience Grandval set out on his journey.  He had not the faintest suspicion that he had been betrayed both by the accomplice who accompanied him and by the accomplice whom he was going to meet.  Dumont and Leefdale were not enthusiasts.  They cared nothing for the restoration of James, the grandeur of Lewis, or the ascendency of the Church of Rome.  It was plain to every man of common sense that, whether the design succeeded or failed, the reward of the assassins would probably be to be disowned, with affected abhorrence, by the Courts of Versailles and Saint Germains, and to be torn with redhot pincers, smeared with melted lead, and dismembered by four horses.  To vulgar natures the prospect of such a martyrdom was not alluring.  Both these men, therefore, had, almost at the same time, though, as far as appears, without any concert, conveyed to William, through different channels, warnings that his life was in danger.  Dumont had acknowledged every thing to the Duke of Zell, one of the confederate princes.  Leefdale had transmitted full intelligence through his relations who resided in Holland.  Meanwhile Morel, a Swiss Protestant of great learning who was then in France, wrote to inform Burnet that the weak and hotheaded Grandval had been heard to talk boastfully of the event which would soon astonish the world, and had confidently predicted that the Prince of Orange would not live to the end of the next month.