uttering imprecations against the judges and their clemency. “They are
traitors!” cried Tichelaer, “but let us first take vengeance on those
whom we have.” John van Witt had been brought to the prison by a message
supposed to have come from the ruart. In vain had his daughter conjured
him not to respond to it. “What are you come here for?” exclaimed
Cornelius, on seeing his brother enter. “Did you not send for me?”
“No, certainly not.” Then we are lost,” said John van Witt, calmly. The
shouts of the crowd redoubled; a body of cavalry still preserved order; a
rumor suddenly spread that the peasants from the environs were marching
on the Hague to plunder it; the States of Holland sent orders to the
Count of Tilly to move against them; the brave soldier demanded a written
order. “I will obey,” he said, “but the two brothers are lost.”
[Illustration: The Brothers Witt----436]
The troops had scarcely withdrawn, and already the doors of the prison
were forced; the ruart, exhausted by the torture, was stretched upon his
bed, whilst his brother sat by his side reading the Bible aloud; the
madmen rushed into the chamber, crying, “Traitors, prepare yourselves;
you are going to die.” Cornelius van Witt started up, joining his hands
in prayer; the blows aimed at him did not reach him. John was wounded.
They were both dragged forth; they embraced one another; Cornelius,
struck from behind, rolled to the bottom of the staircase; his brother
would have defended him; as he went out into the street, he received a
pike-thrust in the face; the ruart was dead already; the murderers vented
their fury on John van Witt; he had lost nothing of his courage or his
coolness, and, lifting his arms towards heaven, he was opening his mouth
in prayer to God, when a last pistol-shot stretched him upon his back.
“There’s the perpetual edict floored!” shouted the assassins, lavishing
upon the two corpses insults and imprecations. It was only at night, and
after having with difficulty recognized them, so disfigured had they
been, that poor Jacob van Witt was able to have his sons’ bodies removed;
he was before long to rejoin them in everlasting rest.
William of Orange arrived next day at the Hague, too late for his fame,
and for the punishment of the obscure assassins, whom he allowed to
escape. The compassers of the plot obtained before long appointments and
rewards. “He one day assured me,” says Gourville, “that it was quite
true he had not given any orders to have the Witts killed, but that,
having heard of their death without having contributed to it, he had
certainly felt a little relieved.” History and the human heart have
mysteries which it is not well to probe to the bottom.
For twenty years John van Witt had, been the most noble exponent of his
country’s traditional policy. Long faithful to the French alliance, he
had desired to arrest Louis XIV. in his dangerous career of triumph;
foreseeing the peril to come, he had forgotten the peril at hand; he had
believed too much and too long in the influence of negotiations and the
possibility of regaining the friendship of France. He died unhappy, in
spite of his pious submission to the will of God; what he had desired for
his country was slipping from him abroad as well as at home; Holland was
crushed by France, and the aristocratic republic was vanquished by
monarchical democracy. With the weakness characteristic of human views,
he could not open his eyes to a vision of constitutional monarchy freely
chosen, preserving to his country the independence, prosperity, and order
which he had labored to secure for her. A politician as, bold as and
more far-sighted than Admiral Coligny, twice struck down, like him, by
assassins, John van Witt remained in history the unique model of a great
republican chief, virtuous and able, proud and modest, up to the day at
which other United Provinces, fighting like Holland for their liberty,
presented a rival to the purity of his fame, when they chose for their
governor General Washington.
For all their brutal ingratitude, the instinct of the people of Holland
saw clearly into the situation. John van Witt would have failed in the
struggle against France; William of Orange, prince, politician, and
soldier, saved his country and Europe from the yoke of Louis XIV.
On quitting his army, the king had inscribed in his notebook, “My
departure.--I do not mean to have anything more done.” The temperature
favored his designs; it did not freeze, the country remained inundated
and the towns unapproachable; the troops of the Elector of Brandenburg,
together with a corps sent by the emperor, had put themselves in motion
towards the Rhine; Turenne kept them in check in Germany. Conde covered
Alsace; the Duke of Luxembourg, remaining in Holland, confined himself to
burning two large villages--Bodegrave and Saammerdam. “There was a grill
of all the Hollanders who were in those burghs,” wrote the marshal to the
Prince of Conde, “not one of whom was let out of the houses. This
morning we were visited by two of the enemy’s drummers, who came to claim
a colonel of great note amongst them (I have him in cinders at this
moment), as well as several officers that we have not, and that are
demanded of us, who, I suppose, were killed at the approaches to the
villages, where I saw some rather pretty little heaps.” The attempts of
the Prince of Orange on Charleroi had failed, as well as those of
Luxembourg on the Hague; the Swedes had offered their mediation, and
negotiations were beginning at Cologne; on the 10th of June, 1673, Louis
XIV. laid siege to Maestricht; Conde was commanding in Holland, with
Luxembourg under his orders; Turenne was observing Germany. The king was
alone with Vauban. Maestricht held out three weeks. “M. de Vauban, in
this siege as in many others, saved a number of lives by his ingenuity,”
wrote a young subaltern, the Count of Alligny. “In times past it was
sheer butchery in the trenches, now he makes them in such a manner that
one is as safe as if one were at home.” “I don’t know whether it ought
to be called swagger, vanity, or carelessness, the way we have of showing
ourselves unadvisedly and without cover,” Vauban used to say; “ but it is
an original sin of which the French will never purge themselves, if God,
who is all-powerful, do not reform the whole race.” Maestricht taken,
the king repaired to Elsass, where skilful negotiations delivered into
his hands the towns that had remained independent: it was time to
consolidate past conquests; the coalition of Europe was forming against
France; the Hollanders held the sea against the hostile fleets; after
three desperate fights, Ruyter had prevented all landing in Holland; the
States no longer entertained the proposals they had but lately submitted
to the king at Utrecht; the Prince of Orange had recovered Naarden, and
just carried Bonn, with the aid of the Imperialists, commanded by
Montecuculli; Luxembourg had already received orders to evacuate the
province of Utrecht; at the end of the campaign of 1673, Gueldres and
Over-Yssel were likewise delivered from the enemies who had oppressed and
plundered them; Spain had come forth from her lethargy; and the emperor,
resuming the political direction of Germany, had drawn nearly all the
princes after him into the league against France. The Protestant qualms
of the English Parliament had not yielded to the influence of the Marquis
of Ruvigny, a man of note amongst the French Reformers, and at this time
ambassador of France in London; the nation desired peace with the
Hollanders; and Charles II. yielded, in appearance at least, to the
wishes of his people.
On the 21st of February, 1674, he repaired to Parliament to announce to
the two Houses that he had concluded with the United Provinces “a prompt
peace, as they had prayed, honorable, and, as he hoped, durable.” He at
the same time wrote to Louis XIV., to beg to be condoled with, rather
than upbraided, for a consent which had been wrung from him. The
regiments of English and Irish auxiliaries remained quietly in the
service of France; and the king did not withdraw his subsidies from his
royal pensioner.
Thus was being undone, link by link, the chain of alliances which Louis
XIV. had but lately twisted round Holland. France, in her turn, was
finding herself alone, with all Europe against her; scared, and,
consequently, active and resolute; the congress of Cologne had broken up;
not one of the belligerents desired peace; the Hollanders had just
settled the heredity of the stadtholderate in the house of Orange. Louis
XIV. saw the danger. “So many enemies,” says he in his Memoires,
“obliged me to take care of myself, and think what I must do to maintain
the reputation of my arms, the advantage of my dominions, and my personal
glory.” It was in Franche-Comte that Louis XIV. went to seek these
advantages. The whole province was reduced to submission in the month of
June, 1674. Turenne had kept the Rhine against the Imperialists; the
marshal alone escaped the tyranny of the king and Louvois, and presumed
to conduct the campaign in his own way; when Louis XIV. sent him
instructions, he was by this time careful to add, “You will not bind
yourself down to what I send you hereby as to my intentions, save when
you think that the good of my service will permit you, and you will give
me of your news the oftenest you find it possible.” (30th of March,
1674.) Turenne did not always write, and it sometimes happened that he
did not obey.
This redounded to his honor in the campaign of 1674. Conde had gained,
on the 11th of August, the bloody victory of Seneffe over the Prince of
Orange and the allied generals; the four squadrons of the king’s
household, posted within range of the fire, had remained for eight hours
in order of battle, without any movement but that of closing up as the
men fell. Madame de Sdvigne, to whom her son, standard-bearer in the
dauphin’s gendarmes, had told the story, wrote to M. de BussyRabutin,
“But for the Te Deum, and some flags brought to Notre-Dame, we should
have thought we had lost the battle.” The Prince 6f Orange, ever
indomitable in his cold courage, had attacked Audenarde on the 15th of
September; but he was not in force, and the, approach of Conde had
obliged him to raise the siege; to make up, he had taken Grave, spite of
the heroic resistance made by the Marquis of Chemilly, who had held out
ninety-three days. Advantages remained balanced in Flanders; the result
of the campaign depended on Turenne, who commanded on the Rhine. “If the
king had taken the most important place in Flanders,” he wrote to
Louvois, “and the emperor were master of Alsace, even without Philipsburg
or Brisach, I think the king’s affairs would be in the worst plight in
the world; we should see what armies we should have in Lorraine, in the
Bishoprics, and in Champagne. I do assure you that, if I had the honor
of commanding in Flanders, I would speak as I do.” On the 16th of June
he engaged in battle, at Sinzheim, with the Duke of Lorraine, who was
coming up with the advance-guard. “I never saw a more obstinate fight,”
said Turenne: “those old regiments of the emperor’s did mighty well.”
He subsequently entered the Palatinate, quartering his troops upon it,
whilst the superintendents sent by Louvois were burning and plundering
the country, crushed as it was under war-contributions. The king and
Louvois were disquieted by the movement of the enemy’s troops, and wanted
to get Turenne back into Lothringen. “An army like that of the enemy,”
wrote the marshal to Louvois, on the 13th of Septem ber, “and at the
season it is now, cannot have any idea but that of driving the king’s
army from Alsace, having neither provisions nor means of getting into
Lorraine, unless I be driven from the country.” On the 20th of
September, the burgesses of the free city of Strasburg delivered up
the bridge over the Rhine to the Imperialists who were in the heart
of Elsass. The victory of Ensheim, the fights of Mulhausen and
Turckheim, sufficed to drive them back; but it was only on the 22d
of January, 1675, that Turenne was at last enabled to leave Elsass
reconquered. “There is no longer in France an enemy that is not a
prisoner,” he wrote to the king, whose thanks embarrassed him.
“Everybody has remarked that M. de Turenne is a little more bashful than
he was wont to be,” said Pellisson.
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, passing 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 God 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 Elsass, and recrossed the Rhine at Altenheim. The death of
Turenne was equivalent to a defeat.
[Illustration: 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 circumstances, 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 space between life and death.” God did not
leave him time. He summoned suddenly to Him this noble, 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.” “God 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.
[Illustration: 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
passionately. “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 ambassador, Lord Montagu. For
more than a year past negotiations had been going on at Nimeguen; Louis
XIV. resolved to deal one more great blow.
[Illustration: 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 Cassel, 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 God to bless on this occasion the arms of the state
under our guidance.”
[Illustration: 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 surpass the lustre 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, succumbed 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 Fagel, “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 nobody 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 pronounced 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 assent 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, Cassel, 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, noble, 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 passions 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 title. Colbert alone resisted him, and he, weary of the
struggle, was about to succumb 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 titles were found, and by degrees
the villages, Burghs, and even principalities, 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
passage 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. “Nobody,” 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 Elsass 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
Duchess 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 Massillon, “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 passes 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.” Nobody 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 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.