Madame de Mailly made such an uproar at the news of this intrusion of the Elector, that at last the attention of our ministers was awakened.  They found, with her, that it was the duty of the King not to allow this morsel to be carried off from his subjects; and that there was danger in leaving it in the hands of such a powerful Protestant prince, capable of making a fortified place of it so close to the county of Burgundy, and on a frontier so little protected.  Thereupon, the King despatched a courier to our minister in Switzerland, with orders to go to Neufchatel, and employ every means, even menaces, to exclude the Elector, and to promise that the neutrality of France should be maintained if one of her subjects was selected, no matter which one.  It was too late.  The affair was finished; the cantons were engaged, without means of withdrawing.  They, moreover, were piqued into resistance, by an appeal to their honour by the electoral minister, who insisted on the menaces of Puysieux, our representative, to whose memoir the ministers of England and Holland printed a violent reply.  The provisional judgment received no alteration.  Shame was felt; and resentment was testified during six weeks; after which, for lack of being able to do better, this resentment was appeased of itself.  It may be imagined what hope remained to the claimants of reversing at the peace this provisional judgment, and of struggling against a prince so powerful and so solidly supported.  No mention of it was afterwards made, and Neufchatel has remained ever since fully and peaceably to this prince, who was even expressly confirmed in his possession at the peace by France.

The armies assembled this year towards the end of May, and the campaign commenced.  The Duc de Vendome was in command in Flanders, under the Elector of Bavaria, and by his slothfulness and inattention, allowed Marlborough to steal a march upon him, which, but for the failure of some of the arrangements, might have caused serious loss to our troops.  The enemy was content to keep simply on the defensive after this, having projects of attack in hand elsewhere to which I shall soon allude.

On the Rhine, the Marechal de Villars was in command, and was opposed by the Marquis of Bayreuth, and afterwards by the Duke of Hanover, since King of England.  Villars was so far successful, that finding himself feebly opposed by the Imperials, he penetrated into Germany, after having made himself master of Heidelberg, Mannheim, and all the Palatinate, and seized upon a number of cannons, provisions, and munitions of war.  He did not forget to tax the enemy wherever he went.  He gathered immense sums—­treasures beyond all his hopes.  Thus gorged, he could not hope that his brigandage would remain unknown.  He put on a bold face and wrote to the King, that the army would cost him nothing this year.  Villars begged at the same time to be allowed to appropriate some of the money he had acquired to the levelling of a hill on his estate which displeased him.  Another than he would have been dishonoured by such a request.  But it made no difference in his respect, except with the public, with whom, however, he occupied himself but little.  His booty clutched, he thought of withdrawing from the enemy’s country, and passing the Rhine.