served in the light cavalry in the Dutch wars, and distinguished himself by his daring and resourcefulness. But in spite of a long record of excellent service under Turenne, Condé and Luxembourg, and of his aristocratic birth, his promotion was but slow for he had incurred the enmity of the powerful Louvois, and although he had been proprietary colonel (mestre de camp) of a cavalry regiment since 1674, thirteen years elapsed before he was made a maréchal de camp. In the interval between the Dutch wars and the formation of the League of Augsburg, Villars, who combined with his military gifts the tact and subtlety of the diplomatist, was employed in an unofficial mission to the court of Bavaria, and there became the constant companion of the elector, with whom he took the field against the Turks and fought at Mohacs. He returned to France in 1690 and was given a command in the cavalry of the army in Flanders but towards the end of the Grand Alliance War he went to Vienna as ambassador. His part in the next war (see Spanish Succession War), beginning with Friedlingen (1702) and Höchstett (1703) and ending with Denain (1712), has made him immortal. For Friedlingen he received the marshalate, and for the pacification of the insurgent Cévennes the Saint-Esprit order and the title of duke. Friedlingen and Höchstett were barren victories, and the campaigns of which they formed part records of lost opportunities. Villars’s glory thus begins with the year 1709 when France, apparently helpless, was roused to a great effort of self-defence by the exorbitant demands of the Coalition. In that year he was called to command the main army opposing Eugene and Marlborough on the northern frontier. During the famine of the winter he shared the soldiers’ miserable rations. When the campaign opened the old Marshal Boufflers volunteered to serve under him, and after the terrible battle of Malplaquet (q.v.), in which he was gravely wounded, he was able to tell the king: “If it please God to give your majesty’s enemies another such victory, they are ruined.” Two more campaigns passed without a battle and with scarcely any advance on the part of the invaders, but at last Marlborough manœuvred Villars out of the famous Ne plus ultra lines, and the power of the defence seemed to be broken. But Louis made a last effort, the English contingent and its great leader were withdrawn from the enemy’s camp, and Villars, though still suffering from his Malplaquet wounds, outmanœuvred and decisively defeated Eugene in the battle of Denain. This victory saved France, though the war dragged on for another year on the Rhine, where Villars took Landau, led the stormers at Freiburg and negotiated the peace of Rastatt with Prince Eugene.
He played a conspicuous part in the politics of the Regency period as the principal opponent of Cardinal Dubois, and only the memories of Montmorency’s rebellion prevented his being made constable of France. He took the field for the last time in the War of the Polish Succession (1734), with the title “marshal-general of the king’s armies,” that Turenne alone had held before him. But he was now over eighty years of age, and the war was more diplomatic than earnest, and after opening the campaign with all the fire and restless energy of his youth he died at Turin on the 17th of June 1734.
Villars's memoirs show us a “fanfaron plein d’honneur,” as Voltaire calls him. He was indeed boastful, with the gasconading habit of his native province, and also covetous of honours and wealth. But he was an honourable man of high courage, moral and physical, and a soldier who stands above all his contemporaries and successors in the 18th century, on the same height as Marlborough and Frederick.
The memoirs, part of which was published in 1734 and afterwards several times republished in untrustworthy versions, were for the first time completely edited by the Marquis de Vogue in 1884–92.
VILLAVICIOSA, a seaport of northern Spain, in the province of Oviedo; on the Ria de Villaviciosa, an estuary formed by the small river Villaviciosa which here enters the Bay of Biscay. Pop. (1900) 20,995. The town is the headquarters of a large fishery, and has some coasting trade. Its exports are chiefly agricultural produce. Villaviciosa suffers from the competition of the neighbouring ports of Gijon and Aviles, and from the lack of railway communication. It is connected by good roads with Siero (13 m.) and Infiesto (9 m.) on the Oviedo-Infiesto railway.
VILLEFRANCHE-DE-ROUERGUE, a town of France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Aveyron, 36 m. W. of Rodez by road. Pop. (1906) town, 6297, commune, 3352. Villefranche, which has a station on the Orleans railway, lies amongst the hills on the right bank of the Aveyron at its junction with the Alzou. One of the three bridges that cross the river belongs to the 13th century, and the straight, narrow streets are full of gabled houses of the 13th and 14th centuries. One of the principal thoroughfares passes beneath the porch of Notre-Dame, the principal church of Villefranche. Notre-Dame was built from 1260 to 1581, the massive tower which surmounts its porch being of late Gothic architecture. The remarkable woodwork in the choir dates from the 15th century. A Carthusian monastery overlooking the town from the left bank of the Aveyron derives much interest from the completeness and fine preservation of its buildings, which date from the 15th century. They include a fine refectory and two cloisters, the smaller of which is a masterpiece of the late Gothic style. The manufacture of leather, animal-traps, hosiery, bell-founding, hemp-spinning, &c., are carried on. Quarries of phosphates and mines of argentiferous lead are worked near Villefranche.
Villefranche, founded about 1252, owes its name to the numerous immunities granted by its founder Alphonse, count of Toulouse (d. 1271), and in 1348 it was so flourishing that sumptuary laws were passed. Soon afterwards the town fell into the hands of Edward, the Black Prince, but was the first place in Guienne to rise against the English. New privileges were granted to the town by King Charles V., but these were taken away by Louis XI. In 1588 the inhabitants repulsed the forces of the League, and afterwards murdered a governor sent by Henry IV. The town was ravaged by plague in 1463, 1558 and 1628, and in 1643 a revolt, excited by the exactions of the intendants, was cruelly repressed.
VILLEFRANCHE-SUR-SAÔNE, a manufacturing town of east-central France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Rhône, on the Morgon near its junction with the Saône, 21 m. N. by W. of Lyons by rail. Pop (1906) 14,794. Among its industries the chief are the manufacture of working clothes, the manufacture, dyeing and finishing of cotton fabrics, the spinning of cotton thread, copper founding and the manufacture of machinery and agricultural implements. The wines of Beaujolais, hemp, cloth, linen, cottons, drapery goods and cattle are the principal articles of trade. An old Renaissance house is used as the town hall. The church of Notre-Dame des Marais, begun at the end of the 14th and finished in the 16th century, has a tower and spire (rebuilt in 1862), standing to the right of the façade (15th century), in which are carved wooden doors. Villefranche is the seat of a sub-prefect and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce and a communal college among its public institutions.
Founded in 1212 by Guichard IV count of Beaujeu, Villefranche became in the 14th century capital of the Beaujolais. As a punishment for an act of violence towards the mayor’s daughter, Edward II. was forced to surrender the Beaujolais to the duke of Bourbon.
VILLEGAS, ESTEBAN MANUEL DE (1589–1669), Spanish poet, was born at Matute (Logroño) on the 5th of February 1589, matriculated at Salamanca on the 20th of November 1610, and challenged attention by the mingled arrogance and accomplishment of Las Eróticas (1617), a collection of clever translations from Horace and Anacreon, and of original poems, the charm of which is marred by the writer’s petulant vanity. Marrying in 1626 or earlier, Villegas practised law at Nájera till 1659, when he was charged with expressing unorthodox views on the subject of free will; he was exiled for four years to Santa Maria de Ribaredonda, but was allowed to return for three months to Nájera in March 1660. It seems probable that the rest of the sentence was remitted, for the report of the local inquisition lays stress on Villegas’s simple piety, on the extravagance of his attire,
