In Spain the English had just made themselves masters of Gibraltar.

"This shows clearly, sir," wrote Tallard to Chamillard after the defeat, "what is the effect of such diversity of counsel, which makes public all that one intends to do, and it is a severe lesson never to have more than one man at the head of an army.

It is a great misfortune to have to deal with a prince of such a temper as the Elector of Bavaria." Villars was of the same opinion; it had been his fate, in the campaign of 1703, to come to open loggerheads with the elector.

"The king's army will march to-morrow, as I have had the honor to tell your Highness," he had declared.

"At these words," says Villars, the blood mounted to his face; he threw his hat and wig on the table in a rage.
'I commanded,' said he, 'the emperor's army in conjunction with the Duke of Lorraine; he was a tolerably great general, and he never treated me in this manner.' 'The Duke of Lorraine,' answered I, 'was a great prince and a great general; but, for myself, I am responsible to the king for his army, and I will not expose it to destruction through the evil counsels so obstinately persisted in.' Thereupon I went out of the room." Complete swaggerer as he was, Villars had more wits and resolution than the majority of the generals left to Louis XIV., but in 1704 he was occupied in putting down the insurrection of the Camisards in the south of France: neither Tallard nor Marsin had been able to impose their will upon the elector.