Claude Louis Hector de Villars Quotes

The most shameful, humiliating and disastrous of routs.

Quoted in D'après Th. H. Barrau, Livre de morale pratique, Paris, Hachette et Cie, 1852

If God lets us have the grace of losing such a battle again, Your Majesty can count on all of his enemies being destroyed.

In war everything depends upon being able to deceive the enemy; and having once gained this point, in never allowing him time to recover himself.

[Your nation] seems immovable, never doing glorious things but by halves, and never disgracing itself.

My friends ... if you make the people run away, you will die of hunger.

I am going to drive your enemies so far that they shall not again see the banks of the Scheldt; and by a battle on my arrival, to regain all that has been taken from your majesty.

When the first shot is fired, no one can calculate what will be the issue of the war. It is, therefore, of vast importance to reflect maturely before we begin it.

God protect me from my friends, I can protect myself from my enemies. [Variation: Defend me from my friends; I can take care of my enemies myself].

Also quoted by Voltaire ("Voulez-vous que je vous dise où sont les vrais ennemis du Prince Eugene? Ils sont à Vienne, et les miens à Versailles.")

What! Is it expected that I, a Marshal of France, should be the first to escalade, when I order you to attack?

Fortify your towns, and above all the Schellenberg, that fort above Donauworth, the importance of which the great Gustavus taught us.

Do you want to know where Prince Eugene’s real enemies are? They are in Vienna, while mine are in Versailles.

A general has to expose his life as much as he exposes the lives of others.

No governor of a place should he permitted to excuse himself for surrendering, on the ground of wishing to preserve the king's troops. Every garrison that displays courage will escape being prisoners of war. For there is no general who, however well assured of carrying a place by assault, will not prefer granting terms of capitulation rather than risk the loss of a thousand men in forcing determined troops to surrender.