If His Majesty would march against the Prince of Orange, victory was almost certain.

Could any advantage which it was possible to obtain on the Rhine be set against the advantage of a victory gained in the heart of Brabant over the principal army and the principal captain of the coalition?
The Marshal reasoned; he implored; he went on his knees; but in vain; and he quitted the royal presence in the deepest dejection.
Lewis left the camp a week after he had joined it, and never afterwards made war in person.
The astonishment was great throughout his army.

All the awe which he inspired could not prevent his old generals from grumbling and looking sullen, his young nobles from venting their spleen, sometimes in curses and sometimes in sarcasms, and even his common soldiers from holding irreverent language round their watchfires.

His enemies rejoiced with vindictive and insulting joy.

Was it not strange, they asked, that this great prince should have gone in state to the theatre of war, and then in a week have gone in the same state back again?
Was it necessary that all that vast retinue, princesses, dames of honour and tirewomen, equerries and gentlemen of the bedchamber, cooks, confectioners and musicians, long trains of waggons, droves of led horses and sumpter mules, piles of plate, bales of tapestry, should travel four hundred miles merely in order that the Most Christian King might look at his soldiers and then return?
The ignominious truth was too evident to be concealed.