On the 6th of August the allies, led by the King of England, marched into Namur by the St. Nicolas Gate, and prepared for the last and terrible assault on the garrison. Villeroy, who had meantime taken the petty towns of Dixmuyde and Deynse, endeavoured to induce the King to raise the siege of Namur by menacing Brussels, which he shelled and greatly damaged; but in vain, for William was not to be lured into relinquishing his prey, and Villeroy, after two days, marched on to Enghien, and, having collected the greater number of the French troops in the Netherlands, amounting in all to over eighty thousand men, advanced to the relief of Namur. But the Prince de Vaudemont having now joined the allied forces it was considered that they were strong enough to face Villeroy, and at the same time continue the siege of the castle and hold the town. On the fifteenth the French host fired a salute of ninety guns as a haughty promise of relief to Boufflers; from then to the nineteenth the two mighty armies faced each other, neither making any movement. Europe held its breath, Paris and London, The Hague and Vienna, Brussels, still half prostrate from French fires, Rome and Madrid waited in almost unbearable suspense for the result of the promised and, it seemed, inevitable combat between the two finest and largest armies that had ever met on European soil. Boufflers burnt fire signals every night on his watch-towers, which urged haste to Villeroy, who still lay beyond the mighty ring of the confederate army who incessantly stormed the citadel. On the nineteenth the King rose at dawn, got his forces under arms, and rode from post to post surveying his troops and watching the enemy; he was in the saddle from four in the morning till nightfall, and tired out three horses. When he returned to his tent that had been pitched in the encampment on the west of the town near the Abbey of Salsines, there was no portion of his vast army that he had not personally inspected. He dined alone; the Elector of Bavaria and the other German princes being in immediate command of the troops that were actually storming Namur. He expected that Villeroy would attack him as soon as it was light, and his preparations were complete. He had an interview with M. Dyckfelt, who was with the army as representative of the States General, and was then alone, it being about ten of the clock and a hot summer night. All the light in the tent came from a silver lamp suspended from the cross-poles, which gave an uncertain and wavering illumination. The King sat in the shadows; on the little table beside him was his sword, his pistols, and a map of Namur.