Having conferred with the deputies of the states about the operations of the campaign, he, about the middle of April, assembled the army at Orchies, between Lisle and Douay; while mareschal de Villars drew together the French troops in the neighbourhood of Cambray and Arras.

Louis had by this time depopulated as well as impoverished his kingdom; yet his subjects still flocked to his standard with surprising spirit and attachment.

Under the pressure of extreme misery they uttered not one complaint of their sovereign; but imputed all their calamities to the pride and obstinacy of the allies.

Exclusive of all the other impositions that were laid upon that people, they consented to pay the tenth penny of their whole substance; but all their efforts of loyalty and affection to their prince would have been ineffectual, had not the merchants of the kingdom, by the permission of Philip, undertaken repeated voyages to the South Sea, from whence they brought home immense treasures; while the allies took no steps for intercepting these supplies, though nothing could have been more easy for the English than to deprive the enemy of this great resource, and convert it to their own advantage.

Had a squadron of ships been annually employed for this purpose, the subjects of France and Spain must have been literally starved, and Louis obliged to submit to such terms as the confederates might have thought proper to impose.