Torbay, on the 15th of November; on the 4th of January, King James,
abandoned by everybody, arrived in France, whither he had been preceded
by his wife, Mary of Modena, and the little Prince of Wales; the
convention of the two Houses in England proclaimed William and Mary
_kings_ (rois--?  king and queen); the Prince of Orange had declined the
modest part of mere husband of the queen.  "I will never be tied to a
woman's apron-strings," he had said.

By his personal qualities as well as by the defects and errors of his
mind Louis XIV. was a predestined acquisition to the cause of James II.;
he regarded the revolution in England as an insolent attack by the people
upon the kingly majesty, and William of Orange was the most dangerous
enemy of the crown of France.  The king gave the fallen monarch a
magnificent reception.  "The king acts towards these majesties of England
quite divinely," writes Madame de Sevigne, on the 10th of January, 1689:
"for is it not to be the image of the Almighty to support a king
out-driven, betrayed, abandoned as he is?  The king's noble soul is
delighted to play such a part as this.  He went to meet the Queen of
England with all his household and a hundred six-horse carriages; he
escorted her to St. Germain, where she found herself supplied, like the
queen, with all sorts of knick-knacks, amongst which was a very rich
casket with six thousand louis d'or.  The next day the King of England
arrived late at St. Germain; the king was there waiting for him, and went
to the end of the Guards' hall to meet him; the King of England bent down
very low, as if he meant to embrace his knees; the king prevented him,
and embraced him three or four times over, very cordially.  At parting,
his Majesty would not be escorted back, but said to the King of England,
'This is your house; when I come hither you shall do me the honors of it,
as I will do you when you come to Versailles.'  The king subsequently
sent the King of England ten thousand louis.  The latter looked aged and
worn, the queen thin and with eyes that have wept, but beautiful black
ones; a fine complexion, rather pale, a large mouth, fine teeth, a fine
figure and plenty of wits; all that makes up a very pleasing person.  All
she says is quite just and full of good sense.  Her husband is not the
same; he has plenty of spirit, but a common mind which relates all that
has passed in England with a want of feeling which causes the same
towards him.  It is so extraordinary to have this court here that it is
the subject of conversation incessantly.  Attempts are being made to
regulate ranks and prepare for permanently living with people so far from
their restoration."

In his pride and his kingly illusions, Louis XIV. had undertaken a burden
which was to weigh heavily upon him to the very end of his reign.

Catholic Ireland had not acquiesced in the elevation of William of Orange
to the throne of England; she invited over King James.  Personally brave,
and blinded by his hopes, he set out from St. Germain on the 25th of
February, 1689.  "Brother," said the king to him on taking leave, "the
best I can wish you is not to see you back."  He took with him a corps of
French troops commanded by M. de Rosen, and the Count of Avaux as
adviser.  "It will be no easy matter to keep any secret with the King of
England," wrote Avaux to Louis XIV.; "he has said before the sailors of
the St. Michael what he ought to have reserved for his greatest
confidants.  Another thing which may cause us trouble is his indecision,
for he has frequent changes of opinion, and does not always determine
upon the best.  He lays great stress on little things, over which he
spends all his time, and passes lightly by the most essential.  Besides,
he listens to everybody, and as much time has to be spent in destroying
the impressions which bad advice has produced upon him as in inspiring
him with good.  It is said here that the Protestants of the north will
intrench themselves in Londonderry, which is a pretty strong town for
Ireland, and that it is a business which will probably last some days."

The siege of Londonderry lasted a hundred and five days; most of the
French officers fell there; the place had to be abandoned; the English
army had just landed at Carrickfergus (August 25), under the orders of
Marshal Schomberg.  Like their leader, a portion of Schomberg's men were
French Protestants who had left their native country after the revocation
of the edict of Nantes; they fought to the bitter end against the French
regiments of Rosen.  The Irish Parliament was beginning to have doubts
about James II.  "Too English," it was said, "to render full justice to
Ireland."  There was disorder everywhere, in the government as well as in
the military operations; Schomberg held the Irish and French in check; at
last William III. appeared.

He landed on the 14th of June, and at once took the road to Belfast; the
Protestant opposition was cantoned in the province of Ulster, peopled to
a great extent by Cromwell's Scotch colonists; three parts of Ireland
were still in the hands of the Catholics and King James.  "I haven't come
hither to let the grass grow under my feet," said William to those who
counselled prudence.  He had brought with him his old Dutch and German
regiments, and numbered under his orders thirty-five thousand men;
representatives from all the Protestant churches of Europe were there
in arms against the enemies of their liberties.

The forces of King James were scarcely inferior to those of his
son-in-law; Louis XIV. had sent him a re-enforcement of eight thousand
men under the orders of the Duke of Lauzun.  On the 1st of July the two
armies met on the banks of the Boyne, near the town of Drogheda.
William had been slightly wounded in the shoulder the evening before
during a reconnaissance.  "There's no harm done," said he at once to his
terrified friends, "but, as it was, the ball struck quite high enough."
He was on horseback at the head of his troops; at daybreak the whole
army plunged into the river; Marshal Schomberg commanded a division; he
saw that the Huguenot regiments were staggered by the death of their
leader, M. de Caillemotte, younger brother of the Marquis of Ruvigny.
He rushed his horse into the river, shouting, "Forward, gentlemen;
yonder are your persecutors."  He was killed, in his turn, as he touched
the bank.  King William himself had just entered the Boyne; his horse
had taken to swimming, and he had difficulty in guiding it with his
wounded arm; a ball struck his boot, another came and hit against the
butt of his pistol; the Irish infantry, ignorant and undisciplined,
everywhere took flight.  "We were not beaten," said a letter to Louvois
from M. de la Hoguette, a French officer, "but the enemy drove the Irish
troops, like sheep, before them, without their having attempted to fire
a single musket-shot."  All the burden of the contest fell upon the
troops of Louis XIV. and upon the Irish gentlemen, who fought furiously;
William rallied around him the Protestants of Enniskillen, and led them
back to the charge; the Irish gave way on all sides; King James had
prudently remained at a distance, watching the battle from afar; he
turned bridle, and hastily took the road back to Dublin.  On the 3d of
July he embarked at Waterford, himself carrying to St. Germain the news
of his defeat. "Those who love the King of England must be very glad to
see him in safety," wrote Marshal Luxembourg to Louvois; "but those who
love his glory have good reason to deplore the figure he made."  "I was
in trouble to know what had become of the king my father," wrote Queen
Mary to William III.; "I dared not ask anybody but Lord Nottingham, and
I had the satisfaction of learning that he was safe and sound.  I know
that I need not beg you to spare him, but to your tenderness add this,
that for my sake the world may know that you would not have any harm
happen to him. You will forgive me this."  The rumor had spread at Paris
that King William was dead; the populace lighted bonfires in the
streets; and the governor of the Bastille fired a salute.  The anger and
hatred of a people are perspicacious.

The insensate pride of king and nation was to be put to other trials; the
campaign of 1689 had been without advantage or honor to the king's arms.
Disembarrassed of the great Conde, of Turenne, and even of Marshal
Luxembourg, who was compromised in some distressing law proceedings,
Louvois exercised undisputed command over generals and armies; his harsh
and violent genius encountered no more obstacles.  He had planned a
defensive war which was to tire out the allies, all the while ravaging
their territories.  The Palatinate underwent all its horrors.  Manheim,
Heidelberg, Spires, Worms, Bingen, were destroyed and burned.  "I don't
think," wrote the Count of Tesse to Louvois, "that for a week past my
heart has been in its usual place.  I take the liberty of speaking to you
naturally, but I did not foresee that it would cost so much to personally
look to the burning of a town with a population, in proportion, like that
of Orleans.  You may rely upon it that nothing at all remains of the
superb castle of Heidelberg.  There were yesterday at noon, besides the
castle, four hundred and thirty-two houses burned; and the fire was still
going on.  I merely caused to be set apart the family pictures of the
Palatine House; that is, the fathers, mothers, grandmothers, and
relatives of Madame; intending, if you order me or advise me so, to make
her a present of them, and have them sent to her when she is somewhat
distracted from the desolation of her native country; for, except
herself, who can take any interest in them?  Of the whole lot there is
not a single copy worth a dozen livres."  The poor Princess Palatine,
Monsieur's second wife, was not yet distracted from her native country,
and she wrote in March, 1689, "Should it cost me my life, it is
impossible for me not to regret, not to deplore, having been, so to
speak, the pretext for the destruction of my country.  I cannot look on
in cold blood and see the ruin at a single blow, in poor Manheim, of all
that cost so much pains and trouble to the late prince-elector, my
father.  When I think of all the explosions that have taken place, I am
so full of horror that every night, the moment I begin to go to sleep, I
fancy myself at Heidelberg or Manheim, and an eye-witness of the ravages
committed.  I picture to myself how it all was in my time, and to what
condition it has been reduced now, and I cannot refrain from weeping hot
tears.  What distresses me above all is, that the king waited to reveal
his orders until the very moment of my intercession in favor of
Heidelberg and Manheim.  And yet it is thought bad taste for me to be
afflicted!"

The Elector of Bavaria, an able prince and a good soldier, had roused
Germany to avenge his wrongs; France had just been placed under the ban
of the empire; and the grand alliance was forming.  All the German
princes joined it; the United Provinces, England, and Spain combined for
the restoration of the treaties of Westphalia and of the Pyrenees.
Europe had mistaken hopes of forcing Louis XIV. to give up all his
conquests.  Twenty years of wars and reverses were not to suffice for
that.  Fortune, however, was tiring of being favorable to France;
Marshals Duras and Humieres were unable to hamper the movements of the
Duke of Lorraine, Charles V., and of the Elector of Bavaria; the French
garrisons of Mayence and of Bonn were obliged to capitulate after an
heroic defence their munitions failed.  The king recalled Marshal
Luxembourg to the head of his armies.  The able courtier had managed to
get reconciled with Louvois.  "You know, sir," he wrote to him on the 9th
of May, 1690, "with what pleasure I shall seek after such things as will
possibly find favor with the king and give you satisfaction.  I am too
well aware how far my small authority extends to suppose that I can
withdraw any man from any place without having written to you previously.
It is with some repugnance that I resolve to put before you what comes
into my head, knowing well that all that is good can come only from you,
and looking upon anything I conceive as merely simple ideas produced by
the indolence in which we are living here."

[Illustration: Marshal Luxembourg---461]

The wary indolence and the observations of Luxembourg were not long in
giving place to activity.  The marshal crossed the Sambre on the 29th of
June, entered Charleroi and Namur, and on the 2d of July attacked the
Prince of Waldeck near the rivulet of Fleurus.  A considerable body of
troops had made a forced march of seven leagues during the night, and
came up to take the enemy in the rear; it was a complete success, but
devoid of result, like the victory of Stafarde, gained by Catinat over
the Duke of Savoy, Victor-Amadeo, who had openly joined the coalition.
The triumphant naval battle delivered by Tourville to the English and
Dutch fleets off Beachy Head was a great humiliation for the maritime
powers.  "I cannot express to you," wrote William III. to the grand
pensionary Heinsius, holding in his absence the government of the United
Provinces, "how distressed I am at the disasters of the fleet; I am so
much the more deeply affected as I have been informed that my ships did
not properly support those of the Estates, and left them in the lurch."

[Illustration: Heinsius----461]

William had said, when he left Holland, "The republic must lead off the
dance."  The moment had come when England was going to take her part in
it.

In the month of January, 1691, William III. arrived in Holland.  "I am
languishing for that moment," he wrote six months before to Heinsius.
All the allies had sent their ambassadors thither.  "It is no longer the
time for deliberation, but for action," said the King of England to the
congress "the King of France has made himself master of all the
fortresses which bordered on his kingdom; if he be not opposed, he will
take all the rest.  The interest of each is bound up in the general
interest of all.  It is with the sword that we must wrest from his grasp
the liberties of Europe, which he aims at stifling, or we must submit
forever to the yoke of servitude.  As for me, I will spare for that
purpose neither my influence, nor my forces, nor my person, and in the
spring I will come, at the head of my troops, to conquer or die with my
allies."

The spring had not yet come, and already (March 15) Mons was invested by
the French army.  The secret had been carefully kept.  On the 21st, the
king arrived in person with the dauphin; William of Orange collected his
troops in all haste, but he did not come up in time: Mons capitulated on
the 8th of April; five days later, Nice, besieged by Catinat, surrendered
like Mons; Louis XIV. returned to Versailles, according to his custom
after a brilliant stroke.  Louvois was pushing on the war furiously; the
naturally fierce temper of the minister was soured by excess of work and
by his decline in the king's favor; he felt his position towards the king
shaken by the influence of Madame de Maintenon; venting his wrath on the
enemy, he was giving orders everywhere for conflagration and bombardment,
when on the 17th of July, 1691, after working with the king, Louvois
complained of pain; Louis XIV. sent him to his rooms; on reaching his
chamber he fell down fainting; the people ran to fetch his third son, M.
de Barbezieux; Madame do Louvois was not at Versailles, and his two elder
sons were in the field; he arrived too late; his father was dead.

"So he is dead, this great minister, this man of such importance, whose
egotism (_le moi_), as M. Nicole says, was so extensive, who was the
centre of so many things!  What business, what designs, what projects,
what secrets, what interests to unfold, what wars begun, what intrigues,
what beautiful moves-in-check to make and to superintend!  Ah! my God,
grant me a little while; I would fain give check to the Duke of Savoy and
mate to the Prince of Orange!  No, no, thou shalt not have one, one
single moment!"  Thus wrote Madame do Sevigne to her daughter Madame de
Grignan.  Louis XIV., in whose service Louvois had spent his life, was
less troubled at his death.  "Tell the King of England that I have lost a
good minister," was the answer he sent to the complimentary condolence of
King James, "but that his affairs and mine will go on none the worse."

In his secret heart, and beneath the veil of his majestic observance of
the proprieties, the king thought that his business, as well as the
agreeableness of his life, would probably gain from being no longer
subject to the tempers and the roughnesses of Louvois.  The Grand
Monarque considered that he had trained (_instruit_) his minister, but he
felt that the pupil had got away from him.  He appointed Barbezieux
secretary for war.  "I will form you," said he.  No human hand had formed
Louvois, not even that of his father, the able and prudent Michael le
Tellier; he had received straight from God the strong qualities,
resolution, indomitable will, ardor for work, the instinct of
organization and command, which had made of him a minister without equal
for the warlike and ambitious purposes of his master.  Power had spoiled
him, his faults had prevailed over his other qualities without destroying
them; violent, fierce, without principle and without scruple in the
execution of his designs, he had egged the king on to incessant wars,
treating with disdain the internal miseries of the kingdom as well as any
idea of pity for the vanquished; he had desired to do everything, order
everything, grasp everything, and he died at fifty-three, dreaded by all,
hated by a great many, and leaving in the government of the country a
void which the king felt, all the time that he was angrily seeking to
fill it up.

Louvois was no more; negotiations were beginning to be whispered about,
but the war continued by land and sea; the campaign of 1691 had
completely destroyed the hopes of James II. in Ireland; it was decided to
attempt a descent upon England; a plot was being hatched to support the
invasion.  Tourville was commissioned to cover the landing.  He received
orders to fight, whatever might be the numbers of the enemy.  The wind
prevented his departure from Brest; the Dutch fleet had found time to
join the English.  Tourville wanted to wait for the squadrons of Estrees
and Rochefort; Pontchartrain had been minister of finance and marine
since the death of Seignelay, Colbert's son, in 1690; he replied from
Versailles to the experienced sailor, familiar with battle from the age
of fourteen, "It is not for you to discuss the king's orders; it is for
you to execute them and enter the Channel; if you are not ready to do it,
the king will put in your place somebody more obedient and less discreet
than you."  Tourville went out and encountered the enemy's squadrons
between the headlands of La Hogue and Barfleur; he had forty-four vessels
against ninety-nine, the number of English and Dutch together.  Tourville
assembled his council of war, and all the officers were for withdrawing;
but the king's orders were peremptory, and the admiral joined battle.
After three days' desperate resistance, backed up by the most skilful
manoeuvres, Tourville was obliged to withdraw beneath the forts of La
Hogue in hopes of running his ships ashore; but in this King James and
Marshal Bellefonds opposed him.

[Illustration: Battle of St. Vincent  465a]

Tourville remained at sea, and lost a dozen vessels.  The consternation
in France was profound; the nation had grown accustomed to victory; on
the 20th of June the capture of Namur raised their hopes again; this time
again William III. had been unable to succor his allies; he determined
to--revenge himself on Luxembourg, whom he surprised on the 31st of
August, between Enghaep and Steinkirk; the ground was narrow and uneven,
and the King of England counted upon thus paralyzing the brilliant French
cavalry.  M. de Luxembourg, ill of fever as he was, would fain have
dismounted to lead to the charge the brigades of the French guards and of
the Swiss, but he was prevented; the Duke of Bourbon, the Prince of
Conti, the Duke of Chartres, and the Duke of Vendome, placed themselves
at the head of the infantry, and, sword in hand, led it against the
enemy; a fortunate movement on the part of Marshal Boufflers resulted in
rendering the victory decisive.  Next year at Neerwinden (29th of July,
1693) the success of the day was likewise due to the infantry.  On that
day the French guards had exhausted their ammunition; putting the bayonet
at the end of their pieces they broke the enemy's battalions; this was
the first charge of the kind in the French armies.  The king's household
troops had remained motionless for four hours under the fire of the
allies: William III. thought for a moment that his gunners made bad
practice; he ran up to the batteries; the French squadrons did not move
except to close up the ranks as the files were carried off; the King of
England could not help an exclamation of anger and admiration.  "Insolent
nation!" he cried.

[Illustration: The Battle of Neerwinden----465]

The victory of Neerwinden ended in nothing but the capture of Charleroi;
the successes of Catinat at Marsaglia, in Piedmont, had washed out the
shame of the Duke of Savoy's incursion into Dauphiny in 1692.  Tourville
had remained with the advantage in several maritime engagements off Cape
St. Vincent, and burned the English vessels in the very roads of Cadiz.
On every sea the corsairs of St. Malo and Dunkerque, John Bart and
Duguay-Trouin, now enrolled in the king's navy, towed at their sterns
numerous prizes; the king and France, for a long time carried away by a
common passion, had arrived at that point at which victories no longer
suffice in the place of solid and definitive success.  The nation was at
last tiring of its glory.  "People were dying of want to the sound of the
Te Deum," says Voltaire in the Siecle de Louis XIV.; everywhere there was
weariness equal to the suffering.  Madame de Maintenon and some of her
friends at that time, sincerely devoted to the public good, rather
Christians than warriors, Fenelon, the Dukes of Beauvilliers and
Chevreuse, were laboring to bring, the king over to pacific views; he saw
generals as well as ministers falling one after another; Marshal
Luxembourg, exhausted by the fatigues of war and the pleasures of the
court, died on the 4th of January, 1695, at sixty-seven years of age.  An
able general, a worthy pupil of the great  Conde, a courtier of much wits
and no shame, he was more corrupt than his age, and his private life was
injurious to his fame; he died, however, as people did die in his time,
turning to God at the last day.  "I haven't lived like M. de Luxembourg,"
said Bourdaloue, "but I should like to die like him."  History has
forgotten Marshal Luxembourg's death and remembered his life.

Louis XIV. had lost  Conde and Turenne, Luxembourg, Colbert, Louvois, and
Seignelay; with the exception of Vauban, he had exhausted the first rank;
Catinat alone remained in the second; the king was about to be reduced to
the third: sad fruits of a long reign, of an incessant and devouring
activity, which had speedily used up men and was beginning to tire out
fortune; grievous result of mistakes long hidden by glory, but glaring
out at last before the eyes most blinded by prejudice!  "The whole of
France is no longer anything but one vast hospital," wrote Fenelon to the
king under the veil of the anonymous.  "The people who so loved you are
beginning to lose affection, confidence, and even respect; the allies
prefer carrying on war with loss to concluding a peace which would not be
observed.  Even those who have not dared to declare openly against you
are nevertheless impatiently desiring your enfeeblement and your
humiliation as the only resource for liberty and for the repose of all
Christian nations.  Everybody knows it, and none dares tell you so.
Whilst you in some fierce conflict are taking the battle-field and the
cannon of the enemy, whilst you are storming strong places, you do not
reflect that you are fighting on ground which is sinking beneath your
feet, and that you are about to have a fall in spite of your victories.
It is time to humble yourself beneath the mighty hand of God; you must
ask peace, and by that shame expiate all the glory of which you have made
your idol; finally you must give up, the soonest possible, to your
enemies, in order to save the state, conquests that you cannot retain
without injustice.  For a long time past God has had His arm raised over
you; but He is slow to smite you because He has pity upon a prince who
has all his life been beset by flatterers."  Noble and strong language,
the cruel truth of which the king did not as yet comprehend, misled as he
was by his pride, by the splendor of his successes, and by the concert of
praises which his people as well as his court had so long made to
reverberate in his ears.

Louis XIV. had led France on to the brink of a precipice, and he had in
his turn been led on by her; king and people had given themselves up
unreservedly to the passion for glory and to the intoxication of success;
the day of awakening was at hand.

Louis XIV. was not so blind as Fenelon supposed; he saw the danger at the
very moment when his kingly pride refused to admit it.  The King of
England had just retaken Namur, without Villeroi, who had succeeded
Marshal Luxembourg, having been able to relieve the place.  Louis XIV.
had already let out that he "should not pretend to avail himself of any
special conventions until the Prince of Orange was satisfied as regarded
his person and the crown of England."  This was a great step towards that
humiliation recommended by Fenelon.

The secret negotiations with the Duke of Savoy were not less significant.
After William III., Victor-Amadeo was the most active and most devoted as
well as the most able and most stubborn of the allied princes.  In the
month of June, 1696, the treaty was officially declared.  Victor-Amadeo
would recover Savoy, Suza, the countship of Nice and Pignerol dismantled;
his eldest daughter, Princess Mary Adelaide, was to marry the Duke of
Burgundy, eldest son of the dauphin, and the ambassadors of Piedmont
henceforth took rank with those of crowned heads.  In return for so many
concessions, Victor-Amadeo guaranteed to the king the neutrality of
Italy, and promised to close the entry of his dominions against the
Protestants of Dauphiny who came thither for refuge.  If Italy refused
her neutrality, the Duke of Savoy was to unite his forces to those of the
king and command the combined army.

Victory would not have been more advantageous for Victor-Amadeo than his
constant defeats were; but, by detaching him from the coalition, Louis
XIV. had struck a fatal blow at the great alliance: the campaign of 1696
in Germany and in Flanders had resolved itself into mere observations and
insignificant engagements; Holland and England were exhausted, and their
commerce was ruined; in vain did Parliament vote fresh and enormous
supplies.  "I should want ready money," wrote William III. to Heinsius,
"and my poverty is really incredible."

There was no less cruel want in France.  "I calculate that in these
latter days more than a tenth part of the people," said Vauban, "are
reduced to beggary, and in fact beg."  Sweden had for a long time been
proffering mediation: conferences began on the 9th of May, 1697, at
Nieuburg, a castle belonging to William III., near the village of
Ryswick.  These great halls opened one into another; the French and the
plenipotentiaries of the coalition of princes occupied the two wings, the
mediators sat in the centre.  Before arriving at Ryswick, the most
important points of the treaty between France and William III. were
already settled.

Louis XIV. had at last consented to recognize the king that England had
adopted; William demanded the expulsion of James II. from France; Louis
XIV. formally refused his consent.  "I will engage not to support the
enemies of King William directly or indirectly," said he: "it would not
comport with my honor to have the name of King James mentioned in the
treaty."  William contented himself with the concession, and merely
desired that it should be reciprocal.  "All Europe has sufficient
confidence in the obedience and submission of my people," said Louis
XIV., "and, when it is my pleasure to prevent my subjects from assisting
the King of England, there are no grounds for fearing lest he should find
any assistance in my kingdom.  There can be no occasion for reciprocity;
I have neither sedition nor faction to fear."  Language too haughty for a
king who had passed his infancy in the midst of the troubles of the
Fronde, but language explained by the patience and fidelity of the nation
towards the sovereign who had so long lavished upon it the intoxicating
pleasures of success.

France offered restitution of Strasburg, Luxembourg, Mons, Charleroi, and
Dinant, restoration of the house of Lorraine, with the conditions
proposed at Nimeguen, and recognition of the King of England.  "We have
no equivalent to claim," said the French plenipotentiaries haughtily;
"your masters have never taken anything from ours."

On the 27th of July a preliminary deed was signed between Marshal
Boufflers and Bentinck, Earl of Portland, the intimate friend of King
William; the latter left the army and retired to his castle of Loo; there
it was that he heard of the capture of Barcelona by the Duke of Vendime;
Spain, which had hitherto refused to take part in the negotiations, lost
all courage, and loudly demanded peace; but France withdrew her
concessions on the subject of Strasburg, and proposed to give as
equivalent Friburg in Brisgau and Brisach.  William III. did not
hesitate.  Heinsius signed the peace in the name of the States General
on the 20th of September at midnight; the English and Spanish
plenipotentiaries did the same; the emperor and the empire were alone in
still holding out: the Emperor Leopold made pretensions to regulate in
advance the Spanish succession, and the Protestant princes refused to
accept the maintenance of the Catholic worship in all the places in which
Louis XIV. had restored it.

Here again the will of William III. prevailed over the irresolution of
his allies.  "The Prince of Orange is sole arbiter of Europe," Pope
Innocent XII. had said to Lord Perth, who had a commission to him from
James II; "peoples and kings are his slaves; they will do nothing which
might displease him."

"I ask," said William, "where anybody can see a probability of making
France give up a succession for which she would maintain, at need, a
twenty years' war; and God knows if we are in a position to dictate laws
to France."  The emperor yielded, despite the ill humor of the Protestant
princes.  For the ease of their consciences they joined England and
Holland in making a move on behalf of the French Reformers.  Louis XIV.
refused to discuss the matter, saying, "It is my business, which concerns
none but me."  Up to this day the refugees had preserved some hope,
henceforth their country was lost to them; many got themselves
naturalized in the countries which had given them asylum.

The revolution of 1789 alone was to re-open to their children the gates
of France.

For the first time since Cardinal Richelieu, France moved back her
frontiers by the signature of a treaty.  She had gained the important
place of Strasburg, but she lost nearly all she had won by the treaty of
Nimeguen in the Low Countries and in Germany; she kept Franche-Comte, but
she gave up Lothringen.  Louis XIV. had wanted to aggrandize himself at
any price and at any risk; he was now obliged to precipitately break up
the grand alliance, for King Charles II. was slowly dying at Madrid, and
the Spanish Succession was about to open.  Ignorant of the supreme evils
and sorrows which awaited him on this fatal path, the King of France
began to forget, in this distant prospect of fresh aggrandizement and
war, the checks that his glory and his policy had just met with.




CHAPTER XLV.----LOUIS XIV., HIS WARS AND HIS REVERSES. (1697-1713.)

France was breathing again after nine years of a desperate war, but she
was breathing uneasily, and as it were in expectation of fresh efforts.
Everywhere the memorials of the superintendents repeated the same
complaints.  "War, the mortality of 1693, the, constant quarterings and
movements of soldiery, military service, the heavy dues, and the
withdrawal of the Huguenots have ruined the country."  "The people," said
the superintendent of Rouen, "are reduced to a state of want which moves
compassion.  Out of seven hundred and fifty thousand souls of which the
public is composed, if this number remain, it may be taken for certain
that there are not fifty thousand who have bread to eat when they want
it, and anything to lie upon but straw."  Agriculture suffered for lack
of money and hands; commerce was ruined; the manufactures established by
Colbert no longer existed; the population had diminished more than a
quarter since the palmy days of the king's reign; Pontchartrain,
secretary of finance, was reduced to all sorts of expedients for raising
money; he was anxious to rid himself of this heavy burden, and became
chancellor in 1699; the king took for his substitute Chamillard, already
comptroller of finance, honest and hard-working, incapable and docile;
Louis XIV. counted upon the inexhaustible resources of France, and closed
his ears to the grievances of the financiers.  "What is not spoken of is
supposed to be put an end to," said Madame de Maintenon.  The camp at
Compiegne, in 1698, surpassed in splendor all that had till then been
seen; the enemies of Louis XIV. in Europe called him "the king of
reviews."

Meanwhile the King of Spain, Charles II., dying as he was, was regularly
besieged at Madrid by the queen, his second wife, Mary Anne of Neuburg,
sister of the empress, as well as by his minister, Cardinal
Porto-Carrero.  The competitors for the succession were numerous; the
King of France and the emperor claimed their rights in the name of their
mothers and wives, daughters of Philip III. and Philip IV.; the Elector
of Bavaria put up the claims of his son by right of his mother, Mary
Antoinette of Austria, daughter of the emperor; for a short time Charles
II. had adopted this young prince; the child died suddenly at Madrid in
1699.  For a long time past King Louis XIV.  had been secretly
negotiating for the partition of the King of Spain's dominions, not--with
the emperor, who still hoped to obtain from Charles II. a will in favor
of his second son, the Archduke Charles, but with England and Holland,
deeply interested as they were in maintaining the equilibrium between the
two kingly houses which divided Europe.  William III. considered himself
certain to obtain the acceptance by the emperor of the conditions
subscribed by his allies.  On the 13th and 15th of May, 1700, after long
hesitation and a stubborn resistance on the part of the city of
Amsterdam, the treaty of partition was signed in London and at the Hague.
"King William is honorable in all this business," said a letter to the
king from his ambassador, Count de Tallard; "his conduct is sincere; he
is proud--none can be more so than he; but he has a modest manner, though
none can be more jealous in all that concerns his rank."

The treaty of partition secured to the dauphin all the possessions of
Spain in Italy, save Milaness, which was to indemnify the Duke of
Lorraine, whose duchy passed to France; Spain, the Indies, and the Low
Countries were to belong to Archduke Charles.  Great was the wrath at
Vienna when it was known that the treaty was signed.  "Happily," said the
minister, Von Kaunitz, to the Marquis of Villars, ambassador of France,
"there is One on high who will work for us in these partitions."  "That
One," replied M. de Villars, "will approve of their justice."  "It is
something new, however, for the King of England and for Holland to
partition the monarchy of Spain," continued the count.  "Allow me,"
replied M. de Villars, "to excuse them in your eyes; those two powers
have quite recently come out of a war which cost them a great deal, and
the emperor nothing; for, in fact, you have been at no expense but
against the Turks.  You had some troops in Italy, and in the empire two
regiments only of hussars which were not on its pay-list; England and
Holland alone bore all the burden."  William III. was still negotiating
with the emperor and the German princes to make them accept the treaty of
partition, when it all at once became known in Europe that Charles II.
had breathed his last at Madrid on the 1st of November, 1700, and that,
by a will dated October 2, he disposed of the Spanish monarchy in favor
of the Duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV.

This will was the work of the council of Spain, at the head of which sat
Cardinal Porto-Carrero.  "The national party," says M. Mignet in his
"Introduction aux Documents relatifs de la Succession d'Espagne,_
"detested the Austrians because they had been so long in Spain; it liked
the French because they were no longer there.  The former had been there
time enough to weary by their dominion, whilst the latter were served by
the mere fact of their removal."  Singlehanded, Louis XIV. appeared
powerful enough to maintain the integrity of the Spanish monarchy before
the face and in the teeth of all the competitors.  "The King of Spain was
beginning to see the, things of this world by the light alone of that
awful torch which is lighted to lighten the dying." [_Memoires de St.
Simon,_ t. iii.  p. 16]; wavering, irresolute, distracted within himself,
he asked the advice of Pope Innocent XII., who was favorable to France.
The hopes of Louis XIV. had not soared so high; on the 9th of November,
1700, he heard at one and the same time of Charles II.'s death and the
contents of his will.

It was a solemn situation.  The acceptance by France of the King of
Spain's will meant war; the refusal did not make peace certain; in
default of a French prince the crown was to go to Archduke Charles;
neither Spain nor Austria would hear of dismemberment; could they be
forced to accept the treaty of partition which they had hitherto rejected
angrily?  The king's council was divided; Louis XIV. listened in silence
to the arguments of the dauphin and of the ministers; for a moment the
resolution was taken of holding by the treaty of partition; next day the
king again assembled his council without as yet making known his
decision; on Tuesday, November 16, the whole court thronged into the
galleries of Versailles; it was known that several couriers had arrived
from Madrid; the king sent for the Spanish ambassador into his closet.
"The Duke of Anjou had repaired thither by the back way," says the Duke
of St. Simon in his Memoires; the king, introducing him to him, told him
he might salute him as his king.  The instant afterwards the king,
contrary to all custom, had the folding-doors thrown open, and ordered
everybody who was there--and there was a crowd--to come in; then, casting
his eyes majestically over the numerous company, "Gentlemen," he said,
introducing the Duke of Anjou, "here is the King of Spain.  His birth
called him to that crown; the last king gave it him by his will; the
grandees desired him, and have demanded him of me urgently; it is the
will of Heaven, and I have yielded with pleasure."  And, turning to his
grandson, "Be a good Spaniard," he said; "that is from this moment your
first duty; but remember that you are French born in order to keep up the
union between the two nations; that is the way to render them happy and
to preserve the peace of Europe."  Three weeks later the young king was
on the road to Spain.  There are no longer any Pyrenees," said Louis
XIV., as he embraced his grandson.  The rights of Philip V. to the crown
of France had been carefully reserved by a formal act of the king's.

[Illustration: "Here is the King of Spain."----475]

Great were the surprise and wrath in Europe; William III. felt himself
personally affronted.  "I have no doubt," he wrote to Heinsius, "that
this unheard-of proceeding on the part of France has caused you as much
surprise as it has me; I never had much confidence in engagements
contracted with France, but I confess I never could have supposed that
that court would have gone so far as to break, in the face of Europe,
so solemn a treaty before it had even received the finishing stroke.
Granted that we have been dupes; but when, beforehand, you are resolved
to hold your word of no account, it is not very difficult to overreach
your mail.  I shall be blamed perhaps for having relied upon France, I
who ought to have known by the experience of the past that no treaty has
ever bound her!  Would to God I might be quit for the blame, but I have
only too many grounds for fearing that the fatal consequences of it will
make themselves felt shortly.  I groan in the very depths of my spirit to
see that in this country the majority rejoice to find the will preferred
by France to the maintenance of the treaty of partition, and that too on
the ground that the will is more advantageous for England and Europe.
This opinion is founded partly on the youth of the Duke of Anjou.  'He is
a child,' they say; 'he will be brought up in Spain; he will be
indoctrinated with the principles of that monarchy, and hee will be
governed by the council of Spain;' but these are surmises which it is
impossible for me to entertain, and I fear that we shall before long find
out how erroneous they are.  Would it not seem as if this profound
indifference with which, in this country, they look upon everything that
takes place outside of this island, were a punishment from Heaven?
Meanwhile, are not our causes for apprehension and our interests the same
as those of the peoples of the continent?"

William III. was a more far-sighted politician than his subjects either
in England or Holland.  The States General took the same view as the
English.  "Public funds and shares have undergone a rise at Amsterdam,"
wrote Heinsius to the King of Englaiid; "and although this rests on
nothing solid, your Majesty is aware how much influence such a fact has."

Louis XIV. had lost no time in explaining to the powers the grounds of
his acceptance.  "The King of Spain's will," he said in his manifesto,
"establishes the peace of Europe on solid bases."  "Tallard did not utter
a single word on handing me his sovereign's letter, the contents of which
are the same as of that which the states have received," wrote William to
Heinsius.  "I said to him that perhaps I had testified too eager a desire
for the preservation of peace, but that, nevertheless, my inclination in
that respect had not changed.  Whereupon he replied, 'The king my master,
by accepting the will, considers that he gives a similar proof of his
desire to maintain peace.'  Thereupon he made me a bow and withdrew."

William of Orange had not deceived himself in thinking that Louis XIV.
would govern Spain in his grandson's name.  Nowhere are the old king's
experience and judgment more strikingly displayed than in his letters to
Philip V.  "I very much wish," he wrote to him, "that you were as sure of
your own subjects as you ought to be of mine in the posts in which they
may be employed; but do not be astounded at the disorder you find amongst
your troops, and at the little confidence you are able to place in them;
it needs a long reign and great pains to restore order and secure the
fidelity of different peoples accustomed to obey a house hostile to
yours.  If you thought it would be very easy and very pleasant to be a
king, you were very much mistaken."  A sad confession for that powerful
monarch, who in his youth found "the vocation of king beautiful, noble,
and delightful."

"The eighteenth century opened with a fulness of glory and unheard-of
prosperity; "but Louis XIV.  did not suffer himself to be lulled to sleep
by the apparent indifference with which Europe, the empire excepted,
received the elevation of Philip V. to the throne of Spain.  On the 6th
of February, 1701, the seven barrier towns of the Spanish Low Countries,
which were occupied by Dutch garrisons in virtue of the peace of Ryswick,
opened their gates to the French on an order from the King of Spain.
"The instructions which the Elector of Bavaria, governor of the Low
Countries, had given to the various governors of the places, were so well
executed," says M. de Vault in his account of the campaign in Flanders,
"that we entered without any hinderance.  Some of the officers of the
Dutch troops grumbled, and would have complained, but the French general
officers who had led the troops pacified them, declaring that they did
not come as enemies, and that all they wanted was to live in good
understanding with them."

The twenty-two Dutch battalions took the road back before long to their
own country, and became the nucleus of the army which William of Orange
was quietly getting ready in Holland as well as in England; his peoples
were beginning to open their eyes; the States General, deprived of the
barrier towns, had opened the dikes; the meadows were flooded.  On the
7th of September, 1701, England and Holland signed for the second time
with the emperor a Grand Alliance, engaging not to lay down arms until
they had reduced the possessions of King Philip V. to Spain and the
Indies, restored the barrier of Holland, and secured an indemnity to
Austria, and the definitive severance of the two crowns of France and
Spain.  In the month of June the Austrian army had entered Italy under
the orders of Prince Eugene of Savoy-Carignano, son of the Count of
Soissons and Olympia Mancini, conqueror of the Turks and revolted
Hungarians, and passionately hostile to Louis XIV., who, in his youth,
had refused to employ him.  He had already crossed the Adige and the
Mincio, driving the French back behind the Oglio.  Marshal Catinat, a man
of prudence and far-sightedness, but discouraged by the bad condition of
his troops, coldly looked upon at court, and disquieted by the aspect of
things in Italy, was acting supinely; the king sent Marshal Villeroi to
supersede him; Catinat, as modest as he was warmly devoted to the glory
of his country, finished the campaign as a simple volunteer.

The King of France and the emperor were looking up allies.  The princes
of the north were absorbed by the war which was being waged against his
neighbors of Russia and Poland by the young King of Sweden, Charles XII.,
a hero of eighteen, as irresistible as Gustavus Adolphus in his impetuous
bravery, without possessing the rare qualities of authority and judgment
which had distinguished the Lion of the North.  He joined the Grand
Alliance, as did Denmark and Poland, whose new king, the Elector of
Saxony, had been supported by the emperor in his candidature and in his
abjuration of Protestantism.  The Elector of Brandenburg, recently
recognized as King of Prussia under the name of Frederic I., and the new
Elector of Hanover were eager to serve Leopold, who had aided them in
their elevation.  In Germany, only Maximilian, Elector of Bavaria,
governor of the Low Countries, and his brother, the Elector of Cologne,
embraced the side of France.  The Duke of Savoy, generalissimo of the
king's forces in Italy, had taken the command of the army.  "But in that
country," wrote the Count of Tesse, "there is no reliance to be placed on
places, or troops, or officers, or people.  I have had another interview
with this incomprehensible prince, who received me with every
manifestation of kindness, of outward sincerity, and, if he were capable
of it, I would say of friendship for him of whom his Majesty made use but
lately in the work of peace in Italy.  'The king is master of my person,