After having paid the last duties to my father I betook myself to Mons to join the Royal Roussillon cavalry regiment, in which I was captain.

The King, after stopping eight or ten days with the ladies at Quesnoy, sent them to Namur, and put himself at the head of the army of M.de Boufflers, and camped at Gembloux, so that his left was only half a league distant from the right of M.de Luxembourg.

The Prince of Orange was encamped at the Abbey of Pure, was unable to receive supplies, and could not leave his position without having the two armies of the King to grapple with: he entrenched himself in haste, and bitterly repented having allowed himself to be thus driven into a corner.

We knew afterwards that he wrote several times to his intimate friend the Prince de Vaudemont, saying that he was lost, and that nothing short of a miracle could save him.
We were in this position, with an army in every way infinitely superior to that of the Prince of Orange, and with four whole months before us to profit by our strength, when the King declared on the 8th of June that he should return to Versailles, and sent off a large detachment of the army into Germany.

The surprise of the Marechal de Luxembourg was without bounds.