"The attack," wrote De Praet to Charles on September 21, 1542, "was so secretly planned and so well carried out that it is a miracle Your Majesty did not lose your Pays-Bas. We must thank God first of all, and next to Him the Queen, to whose extreme care, toil, and diligence, this is owing."[343] Fortunately for the Imperialists, Francis's extravagance had emptied his treasury. All his money, as Paget reported, was spent in building new palaces and buying jewels for himself and his favourites. Stenay and other places had been fortified at vast expense, and by the end of the year most of the French forces were disbanded for lack of funds. It was a sad autumn at Joinville, where the good Duchess wept and prayed for her absent lord and sons, and sighed to think they were fighting against her daughter Louise's husband and father-in-law. In September Guise was invalided home, and he was hardly fit to mount his horse again when the parents received the news of Louise's death, which took place at Brussels on the 18th of October. The charming Princess had always been a delicate girl, and now she died without leaving a child to comfort the husband and father who had loved her so well. This sad event was followed by tidings of the disaster which had befallen the King of Scotland's army in Solway Moss, and of his death on the 18th of December. Antoinette's heart bled for her widowed daughter, who had just given birth to an infant Princess at Linlithgow. "It came with a lass, and it will go with a lass," were the words of the King when he was told of the child's birth, a few days before he died at Falkland Palace. Both Guise and Aumale would gladly have hastened to Mary's help, but it was impossible for them to leave the camp at this critical moment, and Antoinette could only beg her daughter to keep up her courage and trust in God, "the Almighty, who would defend her and the poor little Queen, who although so young is already exposed to the insults of her enemies."[344] [Sidenote: JAN., 1543] BIRTH OF A SON]