The direct contrary of all this was put in practice. In consequence of
the original sin of this project, the army of the French princes was
everywhere thrown into the rear, and no part of it brought forward to
the last moment, the time of the commencement of the secret negotiation.
This naturally made an ill impression on the people, and furnished an
occasion for the rebels at Paris to give out that the faithful subjects
of the king were distrusted, despised, and abhorred by his allies. The
march was directed through a skirt of Lorraine, and thence into a part
of Champagne, the Duke of Brunswick leaving all the strongest places
behind him,--leaving also behind him the strength of his artillery,--and
by this means giving a superiority to the French, in the only way in
which the present France is able to oppose a German force.
In consequence of the adoption of those false politics, which turned
everything on the king's sole and single person, the whole plan of the
war was reduced to nothing but a _coup de main_, in order to set that
prince at liberty.
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