“Madame,” said he, smiling, as he arrived, “how would you do just now to get to Lille?” And at once made them acquainted with the investment.  These things really wounded the Princesse de Conti.  Arriving at Fontainebleau one day, during the movements of the army, Monseigneur set to work reciting, for amusement, a long list of strange names of places in the forest.

“Dear me, Monseigneur,” cried she, “what a good memory you have.  What a pity it is loaded with such things only!” If he felt the reproach, he did not profit by it.

As for Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne, Monseigneur (his father) was ill-disposed towards him, and readily swallowed all that was said in his dispraise.  Monseigneur had no sympathy with the piety of his son; it constrained and bothered him.  The cabal well profited by this.  They succeeded to such an extent in alienating the father from the son, that it is only strict truth to say that no one dared to speak well of Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne in the presence of Monseigneur.  From this it may be imagined what was the licence and freedom of speech elsewhere against this Prince.  They reached such a point, indeed, that the King, not daring to complain publicly against the Prince de Conti, who hated Vendome, for speaking in favour of Monseigneur de Bourgogne, reprimanded him sharply in reality for having done so, but ostensibly because he had talked about the affairs of Flanders at his sister’s.  Madame de Bourgogne did all she could to turn the current that was setting in against her husband; and in this she was assisted by Madame de Maintenon, who was annoyed to the last degree to see that other people had more influence over the King than she had.

The siege of Lille meanwhile continued, and at last it began to be seen that, instead of attempting to fight a grand battle, the wisest course would be to throw assistance into the place.  An attempt was made to do so, but it was now too late.

The besieged, under the guidance of Marechal Boufflers, who watched over all, and attended to all, in a manner that gained him all hearts, made a gallant and determined resistance.  A volume would be necessary in order to relate all the marvels of capacity and valour displayed in this defence.  Our troops disputed the ground inch by inch.  They repulsed, three times running, the enemy from a mill, took it the third time, and burnt it.  They sustained an attack, in three places at once, of ten thousand men, from nine o’clock in the evening to three o’clock in the morning, without giving way.  They re-captured the sole traverse the enemy had been able to take from them.  They drove out the besiegers from the projecting angles of the counterscarp, which they had kept possession of for eight days.  They twice repulsed seven thousand men who attacked their covered way and an outwork; at the third attack they lost an angle of the outwork; but remained masters of all the rest.