Meanwhile all Europe was looking anxiously towards the Low Countries.  The great warrior who had been victorious at Fleurus, at Steinkirk and at Landen had not left his equal behind him.  But France still possessed Marshals well qualified for high command.  Already Catinat and Boufflers had given proofs of skill, of resolution, and of zeal for the interests of the state.  Either of those distinguished officers would have been a successor worthy of Luxemburg and an antagonist worthy of William; but their master, unfortunately for himself, preferred to both the Duke of Villeroy.  The new general had been Lewis’s playmate when they were both children, had then become a favourite, and had never ceased to be so.  In those superficial graces for which the French aristocracy was then renowned throughout Europe, Villeroy was preeminent among the French aristocracy.  His stature was tall, his countenance handsome, his manners nobly and somewhat haughtily polite, his dress, his furniture, his equipages, his table, magnificent.  No man told a story with more vivacity; no man sate his horse better in a hunting party; no man made love with more success; no man staked and lost heaps of gold with more agreeable unconcern; no man was more intimately acquainted with the adventures, the attachments, the enmities of the lords and ladies who daily filled the halls of Versailles.  There were two characters especially which this fine gentleman had studied during many years, and of which he knew all the plaits and windings, the character of the King, and the character of her who was Queen in every thing but name.  But there ended Villeroy’s acquirements.  He was profoundly ignorant both of books and of business.  At the Council Board he never opened his mouth without exposing himself.  For war he had not a single qualification except that personal courage which was common to him with the whole class of which he was a member.  At every great crisis of his political and of his military life he was alternately drunk with arrogance and sunk in dejection.  Just before he took a momentous step his selfconfidence was boundless; he would listen to no suggestion; he would not admit into his mind the thought that failure was possible.  On the first check he gave up every thing for lost, became incapable of directing, and ran up and down in helpless despair.  Lewis however loved him; and he, to do him justice, loved Lewis.  The kindness of the master was proof against all the disasters which were brought on his kingdom by the rashness and weakness of the servant; and the gratitude of the servant was honourably, though not judiciously, manifested on more than one occasion after the death of the master.601

Such was the general to whom the direction of the campaign in the Netherlands was confided.  The Duke of Maine was sent to learn the art of war under this preceptor.  Maine, the natural son of Lewis by the Duchess of Montespan, had been brought up from childhood by Madame de Maintenon, and was loved by Lewis with the love of a father, by Madame de Maintenon with the not less tender love of a foster mother.