I must finish the account of the war of this year with a strange incident.  M. de Noailles, who had been so successful in Catalonia, was on very bad terms with Barbezieux, secretary of state for the war department.  Both were in good favour with the King; both high in power, both spoiled.  The successes in Catalonia had annoyed Barbezieux.  They smoothed the way for the siege of Barcelona, and that place once taken, the very heart of Spain would have been exposed, and M. de Noailles would have gained fresh honours and glory.  M. de Noailles felt this so completely that he had pressed upon the King the siege of Barcelona; and when the fitting time came for undertaking it, sent a messenger to him with full information of the forces and supplies he required.  Fearing that if he wrote out this information it might fall into the hands of Barbezieux, and never reach the King, he simply gave his messenger instructions by word of mouth, and charged him to deliver them so.  But the very means he had taken to ensure success brought about failure.  Barbezieux, informed by his spies of the departure of the messenger, waylaid him, bribed him, and induced him to act with the blackest perfidy, by telling the King quite a different story to that he was charged with.  In this way, the project for the siege of Barcelona was entirely broken, at the moment for its execution, and with the most reasonable hopes of success; and upon M. de Noailles rested all the blame.  What a thunderbolt this was for him may easily be imagined.  But the trick had been so well played, that he could not clear himself with the King; and all through this winter he remained out of favour.

At last he thought of a means by which he might regain his position.  He saw the inclination of the King for his illegitimate children; and determined to make a sacrifice in favour of one of them; rightly judging that this would be a sure means to step back into the confidence he had been so craftily driven from.  His scheme, which he caused to be placed before the King, was to go into Catalonia at the commencement of the next campaign, to make a semblance of falling ill immediately upon arriving, to send to Versailles a request that he might be recalled, and at the same time a suggestion that M. de Vendome (who would then be near Nice, under Marechal Catinat) should succeed him.  In order that no time might be lost, nor the army left without a general, he proposed to carry with him the letters patent; appointing M. de Vendome, and to send them to him at the same time that he sent to be recalled.

It is impossible to express the relief and satisfaction with which this proposition was received.  The King was delighted with it, as with everything tending to advance his illegitimate children and to put a slight upon the Princes of the blood.  He could not openly have made this promotion without embroiling himself with the latter; but coming as it would from M. de Noailles, he had nothing to fear.  M. de Vendome, once general of an army, could no longer serve in any other quality; and would act as a stepping-stone for M. du Maine.