It so happened, however, that one of those slight miscalculations which are productive in history of its chief consequences, prevented the complete humiliation of Louis XIV. The demands of the allies were pushed in one last respect just beyond the line which it was worth the while of the defeated party to accept, for it was required of the old king not only that he should yield in every point, not only that he should abandon the claims of his own grandson to the throne of Spain (which throne Louis himself had now, after eight years of wise administration, singularly strengthened), but himself take arms against that grandson and co-operate in his proper shame by helping to oust him from it. It was stipulated that Louis should so act (if his grandson should show resistance and still clung to his throne) in company with those who had been for so many years his bitter and successful foes. This last small item in the programme of the victors changed all. It destroyed in the mind of Louis and of his subjects the advantages of the disgraceful peace which they had thought themselves compelled to accept; and, as Louis himself well put it, if he were still compelled to carry on the war, it was better to fail in pursuing it against his enemies than against his own household. The king issued to the authorities of his kingdom and to his people a circular letter, which remains a model of statesmanlike appeal. Grave, brief, and resolute, it exactly expressed the common mood of the moment. It met with an enthusiastic response. The depleted countrysides just managed to furnish the armies with a bare pittance of oats and rye (for wheat was unobtainable). Recruits appeared in unexpected numbers; and though none could believe that the issue could be other than disastrous, the campaign of 1709 was undertaken by a united nation. Of French offensive action against the overwhelming forces of their enemies there could be no question. Villars, who commanded the armies of Louis XIV. upon the north-eastern frontier, opposing Marlborough and Eugene, drew up a line of defence consisting of entrenchments, flooded land, and the use of existing watercourses, a line running from the neighbourhood of Douai away eastward to the Belgian frontier. Behind this line, with his headquarters at La Bassée,[1] he waited the fatal assault. It was at the close of June that the enemy's great forces moved. Their first action was not an attempt to penetrate the line but to take the fortresses upon its right, which taken, the defence might be turned. They therefore laid siege to Tournai, the first of the two fortresses guarding the right of the French line. (Mons was the second.)