There is nothing to buy, and it is as much as the transport can do to get, I will not say enough bread, but a bare sufficiency to maintain the troops.

Moreover, the duke has been constantly thwarted in his plans by the Spaniards, who are ready enough to make promises, but never take a single step towards their fulfilment.

The duke's temper is of the shortest, and he has quarrelled openly with most of the leading Spaniards, and has threatened, four or five times, to throw up his command and return to France.

He did do so a year ago, but affairs went so badly, without him, that the cause of France was seriously imperilled by his absence, and it was at the urgent request of Philip that he returned; for at that time the English general, Peterborough, was striking dismay all over the country, and if the duke's advice had not been taken, all our officers acknowledge that we should speedily have crossed the Pyrenees." "And do the population incline towards Philip or the Austrian ?" "As a rule, they incline towards the party which seems likely to win.

They would shout in Madrid as loudly for the Archduke Charles as for Philip.