The King of France, meanwhile, well satisfied to have secured at so easy a rate a powerful diversion of the forces of Holland, and the mutual enfeebling of the two most formidable maritime powers of Europe, cared little how the affairs of his ally prospered, so that he had been enabled to pursue the career of his conquests on land. Marching in person at the head of his troops he laid siege to Maestricht, a town famous for its gallant defence against the Duke of Parma in 1579, but which now, notwithstanding several brisk and murderous sallies, capitulated in less than a month. With this achievement the campaign of Louis ended. The progress of his arms, and the development of his schemes of ambition had now raised him up a phalanx of enemies, such as not even his presumption could venture to despise. He had planned and executed his conquests in full reliance on the cooperation or neutrality of the neighboring powers, and found himself in no condition to retain them in defiance of their actual hostility. He had, from the first, been strongly advised by Conde and Turenne to destroy the fortifications of the less important towns, retaining so many only of the larger as to insure the subjection of the provinces. He had, however, deemed it more consonant to his "glory" to follow the advice of Louvois in preserving all his conquests entire, and had thus been obliged to disperse a large portion of his army into garrisons, leaving the remainder, thinned, moreover, by sickness and desertion, wholly insufficient to make head against the increasing number of his opponents. He therefore came to the mortifying resolution of abandoning the United Provinces, the possession of which he had anticipated with so much pride.