Orange, who had been made general and admiral, without receiving any share in the administration. Their deputies implored the clemency of the victor, but were received by Louvois with insulting haughtiness, and intolerable conditions prescribed. They were required to give up all their possessions beyond the Rhine, and some strong places in the heart of the republic; to restore the Romish religion, and every year send an embassy extraordinary, acknowledging that they held their liberty of the king. Louis, intoxicated by his victories, did not reflect on the inconstancy of fortune, which might one day humble him before those whom he had now oppressed. What treatment will he then meet with? Massacre of the On the return of the deputies, and news of Despair. the conditions, the terror of the people was changed into despair, and despair revived the De Wits. republican courage. The populace, transported with fury, forgetting the services of the De Wits, and charging them as being the authors of the present calamities, murdered and tore them in pieces with that horrible rage, of which some example is to be found in every country. But the magistrates exerted themselves for the public good, with the zeal and intrepedity of patriotic virtue. The young prince of Orange William being at last created stadtholder, became the Stadtholder. principal support of the state. I have a sure method, said he, to prevent my ever being a witness to the ruin of my country; I will die in the last intrenchment. In order to remove the enemy, the Dutch The dykes exposed themselves to the danger of drowning, bored and bored the dykes that kept out the sea. to lay the country under water. Europe roused in favour of Holland. Faults Amsterdam and the other towns were surrounded with the waters that overflowed the adjacent country. The love of liberty, and hatred of oppression, enabled them to endure all the calamities attendant on such a situation, while William animated the people, and assured them of speedy assistance from the other powers of Europe, whom he solicited not with out success. In fact, Europe could not but open her eyes on the haughty ambition of Louis XIV. Every state saw itself threatened with the same enterprises which had made the Austrian power an object of terror and hatred. England was filled with indignation at the pernicious system pursued by her king, Charles II. The elector of Brandenburg openly declared himself, promised the Dutch a body of twenty thousand men, and engaged the emperor Leopold to furnish them with twenty-four thousand. Denmark, with almost all Germany, entered into this league; and Spain in a short time followed their example. Had the conqueror fallen upon the capital committed while its inhabitants were overwhelmed with conqueror. terror; if, instead of following the advice of by the his minister Louvois, and dispersing the troops in the conquered towns, he had demolished the fortifications, as was proposed by Condé and Turenne, who said, that armies were more proper than garrisons for subjecting a country; in a word, if he had not allowed Holland time to breathe, and the stadtholder to act, that expedition would have been less fruitless. The best concerted projects are often ruined by an error in politics, or in the management of a war; and therefore the faults that have been committed furnish some of the most instructive lessons of history. 1673. his The storm which was gathering did not prevent Louis XIV. from taking the town of He loses Maestricht, the siege of which he carried on in advantages. person. This important place opened to him a communication with his conquests. But the general Montecuculi, who had been long stopped on the banks of the Rhine by Turenne, at last joined the Dutch. The prince of Orange took Bonn, having formed his troops by the most rigorous discipline. On the other side, Louvois, an unfeeling minister, caused a good officer to be ignominiously degraded, for having surrendered Naerden, after a combat of five hours. Naerden was the first place that Louis lost. But was it imagined, that the others would be preserved by an unjust example of severity? and that the French would become invincible through the dread of shame, rather than sentiments of honour? That officer continued to serve as a volunteer, and the following campaign met the death which he courted. With so many enemies to oppose, it was im- The possible to keep the three conquered provinces. evacuated. They were therefore put to ransom, and evacuated. What sentiments must then have been inspired by the monuments erected in honour of the conquest; among others, the triumphal arch of the gate of St Denis! Louis began to feel, by experience, the deceitfulness of ambition. Ruyter had fought three battles at sea in the month of June 1673, when he had the glory of opposing the combined fleets of The English give England and France without being vanquished; and Holland showed herself as formidable on the ocean, as if she had sustained no losses elsewhere. At last the English, whose political system Charles II. was irreconcileable with the measures adopted uneasiness. by the court, filled with indignation at being made the instruments of promoting the dangerous projects formed by Louis XIV., gave Charles so much uneasiness, that peace became absolutely necessary. The parliament remonstrated against the Indulgence, which suspended the penal laws regarding religion; and the king broke the seal of that proclamation with his own hand. Besides this, he was obliged to consent to the famous test oath, by which the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation was formally condemned. All who held any office in the state being obliged to take this oath, the duke of York was constrained to resign the post of high-admiral. Charles, seeing the administration exposed to the censures of parliament, and having no hopes of new subsidies, hastily concluded a peace in 1674, Holland promising him a sum of about three hundred thousand pounds sterling. He alone profited by this war, which had been a heavy burden to the nation. He excused himself to Louis, preserved his connexions with France, and even left ten thousand men in her service. CHAPTER III, SEQUEL OF THE WAR WITH HOLLAND, NOW BECOME Almost against Louis. A WAR undertaken with so little reason, though 1674. begun with such vigour and success, might in all Europe the end prove fatal to France. In a short time, she was deserted by all her allies except Sweden. The emperor, with a great part of the empire, Spain and Denmark, were her enemies, as well as Holland. Yet she had great resources in the authority of the king, the skill of her ministers and generals, the ardour of the nation, accustomed to victory, and in the riches which had been diffused through the whole kingdom by industry and commerce. Louis, therefore, was necessarily still triumphant ; but his triumphs were a kind of slow poison, which wasted the body politic. He seized Comte. He went in person to make a conquest of Franche-Comté, which the Spanish minister Franche: abandoned almost to itself. An attempt was made to send succours, but too late; the Swiss refusing to grant a passage. Besançon was taken after a siege which lasted only nine days, and the whole province was subdued in six |