Since the fall of Lille, in fact, Chamillart, impressed with the importance of the place being in our possession, had laid out a plan by which he were to lay siege to it and recapture it.  One part of his plan was, that the King should conduct the siege in person.  Another was that, as money was so difficult to obtain, the ladies of the Court should not accompany the King, as their presence caused a large increase of expense for carriages, servants, and so on.  He confided his project to the King, under a strict promise that it would be kept secret from Madame de Maintenon.  He feared, and with reason, that if she heard of it she would object to being separated from the King for such a long time as would be necessary for the siege:  Chamillart was warned that if he acted thus, hiding his plant from Madame de Maintenon, to whom he owed everything, she would assuredly ruin him, but he paid no attention to the warning.  He felt all the danger he ran, but he was courageous; he loved the State, and, if I may say so, he loved the King as a mistress.  He followed his own counsels then, and made the King acquainted with his project.

The King was at once delighted with it.  He entered into the details submitted to him by Chamillart with the liveliest interest, and promised to carry out all that was proposed.  He sent for Boufflers, who had returned from Lille, and having, as I have said, recompensed him for his brave defence of that place with a peerage and other marks of favour, despatched him privately into Flanders to make preparations for the siege.  The abandonment of Ghent by our troop, after a short and miserable defence, made him more than ever anxious to carry out this scheme.

But the King had been so unused to keep a secret from Madame de Maintenon, that he felt himself constrained in attempting to do so now.  He confided to her, therefore, the admirable plan of Chamillart.  She had the address to hide her surprise, and the strength to dissimulate perfectly her vexation; she praised the project; she appeared charmed with it; she entered into the details; she spoke of them to Chamillart; admired his zeal, his labour, his diligence, and, above all, his ability, in having conceived and rendered possible so fine and grand a project.

From that moment, however, she forgot nothing in order to ensure its failure.  The first sight of it had made her tremble.  To be separated from the King during a long siege; to abandon him to a minister to whom he would be grateful for all the success of that siege; a minister, too, who, although her creature, had dared to submit this project to the King without informing her; who, moreover, had recently offended her by marrying his son into a family she considered inimical to her, and by supporting M. de Vendome against Monseigneur de Bourgogne!  These were considerations that determined her to bring about the failure of Chamillart’s project and the disgrace of Chamillart himself.