"I see quite clearly," he wrote to Louvois on the 9th of September, 1673, "what are the king's wishes, and I will do all I can to conform to them but you will permit me to tell you that I do not think that it would be to his Majesty's service to give precise orders, at such a distance, to the most incapable man in France." Turenne had not lost the habit of command; Louvois, who had for a long while been under his orders, bowed to the will of the king, who required apparent accord between the marshal and the minister, but he never forgave Turenne for his cool and proud independence.

The Prince of Conde more than once turned to advantage this latent antagonism.

After the death of Louvois and of Turenne, after the retirement of Conde, when the central power fell into the hands of Chamillard or of Voysin, the pretence of directing war from the king's closet at Versailles produced the most fatal effects.
"If M.de Chamillard thinks that I know nothing about war," wrote Villars to Madame de Maintenon, "he will oblige me by finding somebody else in the kingdom who is better acquainted with it." "If your Majesty," he said again, "orders me to shut myself up in Bavaria, and if you want to see your army lost, I will get myself killed at the first opportunity rather than live to see such a mishap." The king's orders, transmitted through a docile minister, ignorant of war, had a great deal to do with the military disasters of Louis XIV.'s later years.
Meanwhile order reigned in the army, and supplies were regular.

Louvois received the nickname of great Victualler (_Vivrier_).

The wounded were tended in hospitals devoted to their use.