A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times Volume V Part 19

The coalition was proceeding slowly; the Prince of Orange was ill; the king made himself master of the citadel of Liege and some small places.

Limburg surrendered to the Prince of Conde, without the allies having been able to relieve it; Turenne was posted with the Rhine in his rear, keeping Montecuculli in his front; he was preparing to hem him in, and hurl him back upon Black Mountain. His army was thirty thousand strong.

"I never saw so many fine fellows," Turenne would say, "nor better intentioned." Spite of his modest reserve, he felt sure of victory.

"This time I have them," he kept saying; "they cannot escape me."

On the 27th of June, 1675, in the morning, Turenne ordered an attack on the village of Salzbach. The young Count of St. Hilaire found him at the head of his infantry, seated at the foot of a tree, into which he had ordered an old soldier to climb, in order to have a better view of the enemy's manoeuvres. The Count of Roye sent to conjure him to reconnoitre in person the German column that was advancing. "I shall remain where I am," said Turenne, "unless something important occur;" and he sent off re-enforcements to M. de Roye; the latter repeated his entreaties; the marshal asked for his horse, and, at a hard gallop, reached the right of the army, along a hollow, in order to be under cover from two small pieces of cannon, which kept up an incessant fire. "I don't at all want to be killed to-day," he kept saying. He perceived M. do St. Hilaire, the father, coming to meet him, and asked him what column it was on account of which he had been sent for. "My father was pointing it out to him, writes young St. Hilaire, "when, unhappily, the two little pieces fired: a ball, pa.s.sing over the quarters of my father's horse, carried away his left arm and the horse's neck, and struck M. de Turenne in the left side; he still went forward about twenty paces on his horse's neck, and fell dead. I ran to my father, who was down, and raised him up.

'No need to weep for me,' he said; 'it is the death of that great man; you may, perhaps, lose your father, but neither your country nor you will ever have a general like that again. O, poor army, what is to become of you?' Tears fell from his eyes; then, suddenly recovering himself, 'Go, my son, and leave me,' he said; 'with me it will be as G.o.d pleases; time presses; go and do your duty.'" [_Memoires du Marquis de St. Hilaire,_ t. i. p. 205.] They threw a cloak over the corpse of the great general, and bore it away. "The soldiers raised a cry that was heard two leagues off," writes Madame de Sevigne; "no consideration could restrain them; they roared to be led to battle, they wanted to avenge the death of their father, with him they had feared nothing, but they would show how to avenge him, let it be left to them; they were frantic, let them be led to battle." Montecuculli had for a moment halted. "Today a man has fallen who did honor to man," said he, as he uncovered respectfully. He threw himself, however, on the rearguard of the French army, which was falling back upon Elsa.s.s, and recrossed the Rhine at Altenheim. The death of Turenne was equivalent to a defeat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Death of Turenne----443]

The Emperor Napoleon said of Turenne, "He is the only general whom experience ever made more daring." He had been fighting for forty years, and his fame was still increasing, without effort or ostentation on his part. "M. de Turenne, from his youth up, possessed all good qualities,"

wrote Cardinal de Retz, who knew him well, "and the great he acquired full early. He lacked none but those that he did not think about. He possessed nearly all virtues as it were by nature; he never possessed the glitter of any. He was believed to be more fitted for the head of an army than of a party, and so I think, because he was not naturally enterprising; but, however, who knows? He always had in everything, just as in his speech, certain obscurities, which were never cleared up save by circ.u.mstances, but never save to his glory." He had said, when he set out, to this same Cardinal de Retz, then in retirement at Commercy, "Sir, I am no _talker (diseur),_ but I beg you to believe that, if it were not for this business in which perhaps I may be required, I would go into retirement as you have gone, and I give you my word that, if I come back, I, like you, will put some s.p.a.ce between life and death." G.o.d did not leave him time. He summoned suddenly to Him this n.o.ble, grand, and simple soul. "I see that cannon loaded with all eternity," says Madame de Sevigne: "I see all that leads M. de Turenne thither, and I see therein nothing gloomy for him. What does he lack? He dies in the meridian of his fame. Sometimes, by living on, the star pales. It is safer to cut to the quick, especially in the case of heroes whose actions are all so watched. M. de Turenne did not feel death: count you that for nothing?" Turenne was sixty-four; he had become a convert to Catholicism in 1668, seriously and sincerely, as he did everything. For him Bossuet had written his Exposition of faith. Heroic souls are rare, and those that are heroic and modest are rarer still: that was the distinctive feature of M. de Turenne. "When a man boasts that he has never made mistakes in war, he convinces me that he has not been long at it," he would say. At his death, France considered herself lost. "The premier- president of the court of aids has an estate in Champagne, and the farmer of it came the other day to demand to have the contract dissolved; he was asked why: he answered that in M. de Turenne's time one could gather in with safety, and count upon the lands in that district, but that, since his death, everybody was going away, believing that the enemy was about to enter Champagne." [_Lettres de Madame de Sevigne_.] "I should very much like to have only two hours' talk with the shade of M. de Turenne,"

said the Prince of Conde, on setting out to take command of the army of the Rhine, after a check received by Marshal Crequi. "I would take the consequences of his plans if I could only get at his views, and make myself master of the knowledge he had of the country, and of Montecuculli's tricks of feint." "G.o.d preserves you for the sake of France, my lord," people said to him; but the prince made no reply beyond a shrug of the shoulders.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TURENNE.----444]

It was his last campaign. The king had made eight marshals, "change for a Turenne." Crequi began by getting beaten before Treves, which surrendered to the enemy. "Why did--the marshal give battle?" asked a courtier. The king turned round quickly. "I have heard," said he, "that the Duke of Weimar, after the death of the great Gustavus, commanded the Swedish allies of France; one Parabere, an old blue ribbon, said to him, speaking of the last battle, which he had lost, 'Sir, why did you give it?' 'Sir,' answered Weimar, 'because I thought I should win it.' Then, leaning over towards somebody else, he asked, 'Who is that fool with the blue ribbon?'" The Germans retired. Conde returned to Chantilly once more, never to go out of it again. Montecuculli, old and ill, refused to serve any longer. "A man who has had the honor of fighting against Mahomet Coprogli, against the prince, and against M. de Turenne, ought not to compromise his glory against people who are only just beginning to command armies," said the, veteran general to the emperor on taking his retirement. The chiefs were disappearing from the scene, the heroic period of the war was over.

Europe demanded a general peace; England and Holland desired it pa.s.sionately. "I am as anxious as you for an end to be put to the war,"

said the Prince of Orange to the deputies from the Estates, "provided that I get out of it with honor." He refused obstinately to separate from his allies. "It is not astonishing that the Prince of Orange does not at once give way even to things which he considers reasonable," said Charles II., "he is the son of a father and mother whose obstinacy was carried to extremes; and he resembles them in that." Meanwhile, William had just married (November 15, 1677), the Princess Mary, eldest daughter of the Duke of York and Anne Hyde. An alliance offensive and defensive between England and Holland was the price of this union, which struck Louis XIV. an unexpected blow. He had lately made a proposal to the Prince of Orange to marry one of his natural daughters. "The first notice I had of the marriage," wrote the king, "was through the bonfires lighted in London." "The loss of a decisive battle could not have scared the King of France more," said the English amba.s.sador, Lord Montagu. For more than a year past negotiations had been going on at Nimeguen; Louis XIV. resolved to deal one more great blow.

[Ill.u.s.tration: An Exploit of John Bart's----446]

The campaign of 1676 had been insignificant, save at sea. John Bart, a corsair of Dunkerque, scoured the seas and made foreign commerce tremble; he took ships by boarding, and killed with his own hands the Dutch captain of the Neptune, who offered resistance. Messina, in revolt against the Spaniards, had given herself up to France; the Duke of Vivonne, brother of Madame de Montespan, who had been sent thither as governor, had extended his conquests; Duquesne, quite young still, had triumphantly maintained the glory of France against the great Ruyter, who had been mortally wounded off Catana; on the 21st of April. But already the possession of Sicily was becoming precarious, and these distant successes had paled before the brilliant campaign of 1677; the capture of Valenciennes, Cambrai, and St. Omer, the defence of Lorraine, the victory of Ca.s.sel, gained over the Prince of Orange, had confirmed the king in his intentions. "We have done all that we were able and bound to do," wrote William of Orange to the Estates, on the 13th of April, 1677, "and we are very sorry to be obliged to tell your High Mightinesses that it has not pleased G.o.d to bless on this occasion the arms of the state under our guidance."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Duquesne victorious over Ruyter---446a]

"I was all impatience," says Louis XIV. in his Memoires, "to commence the campaign of 1678, and greatly desirous of doing something therein as glorious as, and more useful than, what had already been done; but it was no easy matter to come by it, and to surpa.s.s the l.u.s.tre conferred by the capture of three large places and the winning of a battle. I examined what was feasible, and Ghent being the most important of all I could attack, I fixed upon it to besiege." The place was invested on the 1st of March, and capitulated on the 11th; Ypres, in its turn, succ.u.mbed on the 25th, after a vigorous resistance. On the 7th of April the king returned to St. Germain, "pretty content with what I had done," he says, "and purposing to do better in the future, if the promise I had given not to undertake anything for two months were not followed by the conclusion of peace." Louis XIV. sent his ultimatum to Nimeguen.

Holland had weight in congress as well as in war, and her influence was now enlisted on the side of peace. "Not only is it desired," said the grand pensionary f.a.gel, "but it is absolutely indispensable, and I would not answer for it that the States General, if driven to extremity by the sluggishness of their allies, will not make a separate peace with France.

I know n.o.body in Holland who is not of the same opinion." The Prince of Orange flew out at such language. "Well, then, I know somebody," said he, "and that is myself; I will oppose it to the best of my ability; but," he added more slowly, upon reflection, "if I were not here, I know quite well that peace would be concluded within twenty-four hours."

One man alone, though it were the Prince of Orange, cannot long withstand the wishes of a free people. The republican party, for a while cast down by the death of John van Witt, had taken courage again, and Louis XIV.

secretly encouraged it. William of Orange had let out his desire of becoming Duke of Gueldres and Count of Zutphen: these foreshadowings of sovereignty had scared the province of Holland, which refused its consent; the influence of the stadtholder was weakened thereby; the Estates p.r.o.nounced for peace, spite of the entreaties of the Prince of Orange. "I am always ready to obey the orders of the state," said he, "but do not require me to give my a.s.sent to a peace which appears to me not only ruinous, but shameful as well." Two deputies from the United Provinces set out for Brussels.

"It is better to throw one's self out of the window than from the top of the roof," said the Spanish plenipotentiary to the nuncio, when he had cognizance of the French proposals, and he accepted the treaty offered him. "The Duke of Villa Hermosa says that he will accept the conditions; for ourselves, we will do the same," said the Prince of Orange, bitterly, "and so here is peace made, if France continues to desire it on this footing, which I very much doubt."

At one moment, in fact, Louis XIV. raised fresh pretensions. He wished to keep the places on the Meuse, until the Swedes, almost invariably unfortunate in their hostilities with Denmark and Brandenburg, should have been enabled to win back what they had lost. This was to postpone peace indefinitely. The English Parliament and Holland were disgusted, and concluded a new alliance. The Spaniards were preparing to take up arms again. The king, who had returned to the army, all at once cut the knot. "The day I arrived at the camp," writes Louis XIV., I received news from London apprising mee that the King of England would bind himself to join me in forcing my enemies to make peace, if I consented to add something to the conditions he had already proposed. I had a battle over this proposal, but the public good, joined to the glory of gaining a victory over myself, prevailed over the advantage I might have hoped for from war. I replied to the King of England that I was quite willing to make the treaty he proposed to me, and, at the same time, I wrote to the States General a letter, stronger than the first, being convinced that, since they were wavering, they ought not to have time given them to take counsel upon the subject of peace with their allies, who did not want it." Beverninck went to visit the king at Ghent; and he showed so much ability that the special peace concluded by his pains received, in Holland, the name of Beverninck's peace. "I settled more business in an hour with M. de Beverninck than the plenipotentiaries would have been able to conclude in several days," said Louis XIV.; "the care I had taken to detach the allies one from another, overwhelmed them to such an extent, that they were constrained to submit to the conditions of which I had declared myself in favor at the commencement of my negotiations. I had resolved to make peace, but I wished to conclude one that would be glorious for me and advantageous for my kingdom. I wished to recompense myself, by means of the places that were essential, for the probable conquests I was losing, and to console myself for the conclusion of a war which I was carrying on with pleasure and success. Amidst such turmoil, then, I was quite tranquil, and saw nothing but advantage for myself, whether the war went on or peace were made."

All difficulties were smoothed away Sweden had given up all stipulations for her advantage; the firm will of France had triumphed over the vacillations of Charles II. and the allies. "The behavior of the French in all this was admirable," says Sir W. Temple, an experienced diplomatist, long versed in all the affairs of Europe, "whilst our own counsels and behavior resembled those floating islands which winds and tide drive from one side to the other."

On the 10th of August, in the evening, the special peace between Holland and France was signed after twenty-four hours' conference. The Prince of Orange had concentrated all his forces near Mons, confronting Marshal Luxembourg, who occupied the plateau of Casteau; he had no official news as yet from Nimeguen, and on the 14th he began the engagement outside the abbey of St. Denis. The affair was a very murderous one, and remained indecisive: it did more honor to the military skill of the Prince of Orange than to his loyalty. Holland had not lost an inch of her territory during this war; so long, so desperate, and notoriously undertaken in order to destroy her; she had spent much money, she had lost many men, she had shaken the confidence of her allies by treating alone and being the first to treat, but she had furnished a chief to the European coalition, and she had shown an example of indomitable resistance; the States General and the Prince of Orange alone, besides Louis XIV., came the greater out of the struggle. The King of England had lost all consideration both at home and abroad, and Spain paid all the expenses of the war.

Peace was concluded on the 17th of September, thanks to the energetic intervention of the Hollanders. The king restored Courtray, Audenarde, Ath, and Charleroi, which had been given him by the treaty of Aix-la- Chapelle, Ghent, Linmburg, and St. Ghislain; but he kept by definitive right St. Omer, Ca.s.sel, Aire, Ypres, Cambray, Bouchain, Valenciennes, and all Franche-Comte; henceforth he possessed in the north of France a line of places extending from Dunkerque to the Meuse; the Spanish monarchy was disarmed.

It still required a successful campaign under Marshal Crequi to bring the emperor and the German princes over to peace; exchanges of territory and indemnities re-established the treaty of Westphalia on all essential points. The Duke of Lorraine refused the conditions on which the king proposed to restore to him his duchy; so Louis XIV. kept Lorraine.

The King of France was at the pinnacle of his greatness and power.

"Singly against all," as Louvois said, he had maintained the struggle against Europe, and he came out of it victorious; everywhere, with good reason, was displayed his proud device, _Nec pluribus impar_. "My will alone," says Louis XIV. in his Memoires, "concluded this peace, so much desired by those on whom it did not depend; for, as to my enemies, they feared it as much as the public good made me desire it, and that prevailed on this occasion over the gain and personal glory I was likely to find in the continuation of the war. . . . I was in full enjoyment of my good fortune and the fruits of my good conduct, which had caused me to profit by all the occasions I had met with for extending the borders of my kingdom at the expense of my enemies."

"Here is peace made," wrote Madame de Sevigne to the Count of Bussy.

"The king thought it handsomer to grant it this year to Spain and Holland than to take the rest of Flanders; he is keeping that for another time."

The Prince of Orange thought as Madame de Seigne: he regarded the peace of Nimeguen as a truce, and a truce fraught with danger to Europe. For that reason did he soon seek to form alliances in order to secure the repose of the world against the insatiable ambition of King Louis XIV.

Intoxicated by his successes and the adulation of his court, the King of France no longer brooked any objections to his will or any limits to his desires. The poison of absolute power had done its work. Louis XIV.

considered the "office of king" grand, n.o.ble, delightful, "for he felt himself worthy of acquitting himself well in all matters in which he engaged." "The ardor we feel for glory," he used to say, "is not one of those feeble pa.s.sions which grow dull by possession; its favors, which are never to be obtained without effort, never, on the other hand, cause disgust, and whoever can do without longing for fresh ones is unworthy of all he has received."

Standing at the king's side and exciting his pride and ambition, Louvois had little by little absorbed all the functions of prime minister without bearing the t.i.tle. Colbert alone resisted him, and he, weary of the struggle, was about to succ.u.mb before long (1683), driven to desperation by the burdens that the wars and the king's luxury caused to weigh heavily upon France. Peace had not yet led to disarmament; an army of a hundred and forty thousand men remained standing, ever ready to uphold the rights of France during the long discussions over the regulation of the frontiers. In old papers ancient t.i.tles were found, and by degrees the villages, Burghs, and even princ.i.p.alities, claimed by King Louis XIV.

were re-united quietly to France; King Charles XI. was thus alienated, in consequence of the seizure of the countship of Deux-Ponts, to which Sweden laid claim. Strasburg was taken by a surprise. This free city had several times violated neutrality during the war; Louvois had kept up communications inside the place; suddenly he had the approaches and the pa.s.sage over the Rhine occupied by thirty-five thousand men on the night between the 16th and 17th of September, 1681; the burgesses sent up to ask aid from the emperor, but the messengers were arrested; on the 30th Strasburg capitulated, and Louis XIV. made his triumphant entry there on the 24th of October. "n.o.body," says a letter of the day, "can recover from the consternation caused by the fact that the French have taken Strasburg without firing a single shot; everybody says it is one of the wheels of the chariot to be used for a drive into the empire, and that the door of Elsa.s.s is shut from this moment."

The very day of the surrender of Strasburg (September 30, 1681), Catinat, with a corps of French troops, entered Casale, sold to Louis XIV. by the Duke of Mantua. The king thought to make sure of Piedmont by marrying his niece, Monsieur's daughter, to the Duke of Savoy, Victor-Amadeo, quite a boy, delicate and taciturn, at loggerheads with his mother and with her favorites. Marie Louise d'Orleans, elder sister of the young d.u.c.h.ess of Savoy, had married the King of Spain, Charles II., a sickly creature of weak intellect. Louis XIV. felt the necessity of forming new alliances; the old supports of France had all gone over to the enemy.

Sweden and Holland were already allied to the empire; the German princes joined the coalition. The Prince of Orange, with an ever-vigilant eye on the frequent infractions of the treaties which France permitted herself to commit, was quietly negotiating with his allies, and ready to take up arms to meet the common danger. "He was," says Ma.s.sillon, "a prince profound in his views, skilful in forming leagues and banding spirits together, more successful in exciting wars than on the battle-field, more to be feared in the privacy of the closet than at the head of armies, a prince and an enemy whom hatred of the French name rendered capable of conceiving great things and of executing them, one of those geniuses who seem born to move at their will both peoples and sovereigns." French diplomacy was not in a condition to struggle with the Prince of Orange.

M. de Pomponne had succeeded Lionne; he was disgraced in 1679. "I order his recall," said the king, "because all that pa.s.ses through his hands loses the grandeur and force which ought to be shown in executing the orders of a king who is no poor creature." Colbert de Croissy, the minister's brother, was from that time employed to manage with foreign countries all the business which Louvois did not reserve to himself.

Duquesne had bombarded Algiers in 1682; in 1684, he destroyed several districts of Genoa, which was accused of having failed in neutrality between France and Spain; and at the same time Marshals Humieres and Crequi occupied Audenarde, Courtray, and Dixmude, and made themselves masters of Luxemburg; the king reproached Spain with its delays in the regulation of the frontiers, and claimed to occupy the Low Countries pacifically; the diet of Ratisbonne intervened; the emperor, with the aid of Sobieski, King of Poland, was occupied in repelling the invasions of the Turks; a truce was concluded for twenty-four years; the empire and Spain acquiesced in the king's new conquests. "It seemed to be established," said the Marquis de la Fare, "that the empire of France was an evil not to be avoided by other nations." n.o.body was more convinced of this than King Louis XIV.

He was himself about to deal his own kingdom a blow more fatal than all those of foreign wars and of the European coalition. Intoxicated by so much success and so many victories, he fancied that consciences were to be bent like states, and he set about bringing all his subjects back to the Catholic faith. Himself returning to a regular life, under the influence of age and of Madame de Maintenon, he thought it a fine thing to establish in his kingdom that unity of religion which Henry IV. and Richelieu had not been able to bring about. He set at nought all the rights consecrated by edicts, and the long patience of those Protestants whom Mazarin called "the faithful flock;" in vain had persecution been tried for several years past; tyranny interfered, and the edict of Nantes was revoked on the 13th of October, 1685. Some years later, the Reformers, by hundreds of thousands, carried into foreign lands their industries, their wealth, and their bitter resentments. Protestant Europe, indignant, opened her doors to these martyrs to conscience, living witnesses of the injustice and arbitrary power of Louis XIV.

All the princes felt themselves at the same time insulted and threatened in respect of their faith as well as of their puissance. In the early months of 1686, the league of Augsburg united all the German princes, Holland, and Sweden; Spain and the Duke of Savoy were not slow to join it. In 1687, the diet of Ratisbonne refused to convert the twenty years'

truce into a definitive peace. By his haughty pretensions the king gave to the coalition the support of Pope Innocent XI.; Louis XIV. was once more single-handed against all, when he invaded the electorate of Cologne in the month of August, 1686. Philipsburg, lost by France in 1676, was recovered on the 29th of October; at the end of the campaign, the king's armies were masters of the Palatinate. In the month of January, 1689, war was officially declared against Holland, the emperor, and the empire.

The commander-in-chief of the French forces was intrusted to the dauphin, then twenty-six years of age. "I give you an opportunity of making your merit known," said Louis XIV. to his son: "exhibit it to all Europe, so that when I come to die it shall not be perceived that the king is dead."

The dauphin was already tasting the pleasures of conquest, and the coalition had not stirred. They were awaiting their chief; William of Orange was fighting for them in the very act of taking possession of the kingdom of England. Weary of the narrow-minded and cruel tyranny of their king, James II., disquieted at his blind zeal for the Catholic religion, the English nation had summoned to their aid the champion of Protestantism; it was in the name of the political liberties and the religious creed of England that the Prince of Orange set sail on the 11th of November, 1688; on the flags of his vessels was inscribed the proud device of his house, I will maintain; below were the words, _Pro libertate et Protestante religione._ William landed without obstacle at 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 ap.r.o.n-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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.ses 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 gra.s.s 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 b.u.t.t 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.

Disembarra.s.sed 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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."