the frontier, and advance direct on the capital. This daring but prudent design, says Mr Alison, was precisely that of Wellington and Blucher a century afterwards; but Marlborough was overruled--Eugene for once concurring in regarding it as too hazardous; and it was resolved to commence the invasion of the territories of the Grand Monarque, by laying siege to the inestimably-important frontier fortress of LILLE, the strongest place in French Flanders, and which could give the Allies a solid footing, a commanding position, in the territories of Louis. The undertaking, however, was most formidable--"for not only was the place itself, the masterpiece of Vauban, of great strength, but the citadel within its walls was still stronger; and, moreover, it was garrisoned by the celebrated Marshal Boufflers, with fifteen thousand choice troops, and every requisite for a vigorous defence."[30] Besides all this, Vendôme and the Duke of Berwick, at the head of more than a hundred thousand men, lay in an impregnable camp, covered by the canal of Bruges, completely fortified, between Ghent and Bruges, ready to interrupt or raise the siege. But of what avail? Marlborough sate down before Lille, and it fell. To avert that event, Vendôme and Berwick led forth their magnificent army, a hundred and ten thousand men, preceded by two hundred pieces of cannon, in the finest order, to within a quarter of a league of Marlborough--"everybody expecting the greatest battle, on the morrow, which Europe had ever seen."[31] Thus grandly they advanced; but as ridiculously retired without firing a shot! Marlborough, however, was of a different humour, and resolved to follow and fight them; and the Duke of Berwick himself has told us what the issue would have been--that Marlborough would have utterly routed his enemy, and probably finished the war that day." But--the Dutch deputies again! They interposed, and Marlborough's heart nearly burst as he beheld the foe retire unmolested. "If Cæsar or Alexander," said Eugene, "had had the Dutch deputies by their side, their conquests would have been less rapid.[32] The siege went on--a ball striking Eugene on the head, and wounding him severely, whereby the whole burthen of directing and sustaining the vast operations fell on Marlborough alone, till Eugene's recovery. After sixty days' siege, Boufflers was compelled to capitulate, being treated very nobly by his captors. Still the citadel remained--but that also fell; and so fell the strongest frontier fortress of France, under the eyes of its best generals and most powerful army! A siege perhaps the most memorable, and also one of the most bloody, in modern Europe,--standing forth, as Mr Alison elsewhere remarks, in solitary and unapproachable grandeur in European warfare. The Allies were now within reach of the very heart of France; and Louis XIV. was trembling in his halls at Versailles.[33] Before Marlborough could close his campaign, however, he recovered Ghent and Bruges.