As for what you say to me about my indecision, it is true that I myself reproach myself for it, and I pray God every day to give me, together with wisdom and prudence, strength and courage to carry out what I believe to be my duty." He had no more commands, in spite of his entreaties to obtain, in 1709, permission to march against the enemy.

"If money is short, I will go without any train," he said; "I will live like a simple officer; I will eat, if need be, the bread of a common soldier, and none will complain of lacking superfluities when I have scarcely necessaries." It was at the very time when the Archbishop of Cambrai was urgent for peace to be made at any price.

"The people no longer live like human beings," he said, in a memorial sent to the Duke of Beauvilliers; "there is no counting any longer on their patience, they are reduced to such outrageous trials.

As they have nothing more to hope, they have nothing more to fear.

The king has no right to risk France in order to save Spain; he received his kingdom from God, not that he should expose it to invasion by the enemy, as if it were a thing with which he can do anything he pleases, but that he should rule it as a father, and transmit it as a precious heirloom to his posterity." He demanded at the same time the convocation of the assembly of notables.
It was this kingdom, harassed on all sides by its enemies, bleeding, exhausted, but stronger, nevertheless, and more bravely faithful than was made out by Fenelon, that the new dauphin found himself suddenly called upon to govern by the death of Monseigneur, and by the unexpected confidence testified in him before long by the king.