Historians and collectors of our cities of the Nord and Pas-de-Calais, as well as those of Belgium and Holland, know the series of the 38 etchings of the Conquetes du Roi by Sebastien Leclerc. One did not know that, from the start, it was to be a set of 80, as far as can be gathered from the manuscript kept in the S.H.A.T. in the Vincennes castle. Indeed 42 extra speeches written by Francois Charpentier, doyen of the Academie Francaise, complement Sebastien Lecler's series. Among these latter one can find "Valenciennes caught and saved from plunder", "the Fort des Vaches, near Saint-Omer" and above all "the Capture of Conde" a gouache of which, by Sylvain Bonnet, kept in the Museum of Valenciennes, seems to be a grandiose project that never came to be because of the war of the Augsburg League.
