Claude Louis Hector de Villars  Claude Louis Hector de Villars, Prince de Martigues, Marquis then Duc de Villars, Vicomte de Melun (8 May 1653 – 17 June 1734) was a general of Louis XIV of France, one of only six Marshals who have been promoted to Marshal General of France. Villars was born at Moulins (in the present-day département of Allier) in a noble but poor family — his father was the diplomat Pierre de Villars. He entered the French army through the corps of pages in 1671. He distinguished himself at twenty in the Siege of Maastricht in 1673 during the Franco-Dutch War and after the bloody Battle of Seneffe a year later he was promoted on the field to mestre de camp (colonel) of a cavalry regiment. The next promotion would take time in spite of a long record of service under Turenne, The Great Condé and Luxembourg, and of his aristocratic birth, as he had incurred the enmity of the powerful Louvois. He was finally made "maréchal de camp" in 1687. 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 a diplomat, was employed in an unofficial mission to the court of Bavaria, and there became the constant companion of Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria. 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 War of the Grand Alliance, in 1698, he went to Vienna as ambassador. It was Villars' part in the next war, beginning with Friedlingen (1702) and Hochstadt (1703) and ending with Denain (1712), that has made him most famous. For his part in the battle of Friedlingen he received the marshalate, and for the pacification of the insurgent Cévennes he received the Saint-Esprit order and the title of duke. Friedlingen and Hochstadt were barren victories, and the campaigns of which they formed were characterized by lost opportunities. Villars' glory thus begins with the year 1709 when France, apparently helpless, was roused to a great effort of self-defence by the stringent demands of the Coalition. In that year he was called to command the main army opposing Prince Eugène of Savoy and Marlborough on the northern frontier.