of his consort then, Maria Theresa, who sprang from the first marriage of Philip, Louis claimed every province in which it could be found that the succession to property was regulated by this law.

That this claim was totally devoid of foundation is now admitted even by French writers. Not only had the suzerainty of these provinces never devolved in accordance with the laws relating to private property which prevailed in some of them, but the royal succession had been fixed in the most precise manner by an act of the State of Brabant, passed in the reign of Charles V.; and beyond this, even had any rights devolved upon Maria Theresa through her father, Louis had, at the treaty of the Pyrenees and before his marriage had been allowed to take place, expressly renounced them. His agents, indeed, had been ever since repeating in every Court of Europe that this renunciation was not binding; yet no person who had any regard for honesty could understand how an oath, taken in the most solemn form the Church could prescribe, could be regarded as meaningless. Louis, however, cared neither for the arguments nor the indignation of honest men. He knew that he was master of a splendid army, that he could command the talents of the greatest generals of the age, and that the provinces to which he laid claim were quite incapable of making any defence. Thirty-five thousand men were soon assembled at Amiens; and in three months Turenne had routed the handful of troops which the Governor of the Netherlands could oppose to him, and was master of nearly all the important towns of Flanders and Brabant. But this lawless act of violence had spread alarm round Europe. Up to this period the Dutch had been educated in hereditary terror of their old oppressor, the King of Spain, while they had looked upon France, the ancient antagonist of Spain, as their natural ally and protector. All at once the position was changed. The good traders saw that it was no longer Spain, unable to defend her own possessions, that was formidable to their liberties, but the ambitious King of France, who was rapidly advancing his frontiers towards their own. England upon her side, though with far less real cause for alarm, was not without growing uneasiness at the prodigious strides the French king was

making in power. The two maritime nations, in the common terror, laid aside their old jealousies, and formed a league. Sweden, then fallen to a third-rate power; acceded and what was termed the Triple Alliance was concluded, with the object of checking the further progress of Louis. That personage,

however, who was little inclined to fighting when any real resistance might be expected, very soon expressed his willingness to accept the conditions which the Allies sought to impose upon him. They were indeed not very hard, since the united Powers, recognising their own inability to evict the King from the towns he had captured in the Netherlands, allowed him to retain them, stipulating only that he would restore Franche Comté, a Spanish province in the midst of France, which the Prince of Condé had overrun in a fortnight, and which could be seized again at any moment. This composition with Louis, humiliating enough to every other Power concerned, was effected at the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1668.

In the views of Louis, however, peace meant nothing more than a convenient time for augmenting armies, and intriguing in every court of Europe against the Power he designed to attack next. Two years after the peace, upon a trifling provocation, the Duchy of Lorraine was seized, "as easily," says Voltaire, "as we seize upon Avignon when we are dissatisfied with the Pope." But a much grander enterprise had been for some time planning by Louis. He had not forgiven the Dutch for the part they had taken in the Triple Alliance. He was determined to chastise them for having presumed to imagine that they could control his actions. The high spirit this independent people showed in some dispute with him touching customs duties still further inflamed his resentment. wounded vanity, his love of conquering, and his desire of being revenged, were, on this occasion, seconded by his zeal for religion. It pleased his imagination to picture himself as a divine instrument for destroying one of the strongholds of heresy. By the spring of 1672 his preparations were complete for overwhelming the little Republic. Never since the commencement of history had preparations so prodigious been made for compassing an object apparently so easy to be attained. Fifty millions of livres, for that age an enormous sum of money, had

His

been accumulated in the treasury. A large fleet had been constructed. No less than a hundred and fifty thousand men, the most powerful force, if the quality of the troops be considered, the world had yet seen, had been assembled; and alliances had been concluded with several princes, who engaged to assist the invader by land and sea. Of the conduct of England at this period it is painful to speak. By the secret treaty of Dover, Charles II. consented to join his fleet to that of Louis to assist in ruining a prosperous country, the asylum of liberty and the Protestant doctrines. The avalanche descended upon the almost defenceless Republic with irresistible force. Four armies, commanded by the three most experienced and gifted generals it was ever the good fortune of one prince to possess, Condé, Turenne, and Luxembourg, marched simultaneously, but by different routes, upon the devoted provinces. Louis, in person, moved along with the army of Turenne to animate his men by his presence; and with him was Vauban, the father of military engineers, to conduct the sieges. Such little resistance as the Dutch troops could make was borne down in a moment. In twenty-two days, forty strong places were in the hands of the invader. In less than two months, five out of the seven provinces were in the power of the French, and Louis was insolently celebrating his triumph by a performance of the mass in the cathedral of Utrecht, while the panic-stricken burghers of Amsterdam could discern from their walls the fires of his advanced guard. The means by which the Republic was saved at this extremity, the noble devotion of the inhabitants, the exploits of William of Orange, the cutting of the dykes, and the flooding of the country, are too familiar to need repetition. The magnificent Louis was the first to retreat from the enterprise, as soon as it had become one of danger. It was not, however, until more than a year afterwards that Luxembourg, with the last bands of the invading force, quitted the territory of the Republic, leaving behind him an imperishable hatred to the French name, branded on the memories of the Dutch by a thousand acts of oppression and cruelty.

At length, in 1678, Europe again obtained the blessing of peace. By that time Louis, continuing his depredations upon the outlying provinces of Spain and the Empire, had recaptured

Franche Comté, and driven the Imperial troops out of Alsace. At the peace of Nimeguen he was in a condition to dictate almost what terms he pleased. He chose to retain Franche Comté, and the prefecture of the free towns of Alsace. It was at this period that his courtiers, in adoration of that wicked but successful career which had so considerably enlarged the limits of the kingdom, saluted him with the title of " Great."

Holland, Spain, and the Empire, exhausted by war, now gladly laid down their arms, and disbanded their troops. Louis only employed the time in recruiting his diminished companies. The active monarch visited in person every part of his dominions. Vauban went busily to work to strengthen the newly-acquired frontier towns. Fresh fortresses sprang up at every weak point. Colbert, the devoted servant of an ungrateful master, was in the meanwhile directing all the energies of his powerful mind to the improvement of the French navy. Louis watched his time; and no sooner did he perceive that Europe had disarmed, than, in open violation of treaty upon treaty, he seized on the town of Strasburg. It was in vain that the citizens appealed to those German princes who had guaranteed their liberty. The town was finally annexed to the French dominions; and Louis at once commenced those works which render it the barrier of the Rhine and the key of Germany.

This flagrant act excited intense indignation throughout Europe. But the nations, weary of war, contented themselves with exclaiming against the ambition and perfidy of the King. Louis saw their unwillingness to fight, and it encouraged him to recommence his conquests. At a hint from him the Parliament of Metz discovered that several fiefs in the duchy of Luxembourg had, at some remote period, been held of the French crown, and accordingly summoned the King of Spain to appear and do homage for them. As his Catholic Majesty failed to make his appearance on the appointed day, the Parliament went on to decree the confiscation of the duchy. Marshal Créqui was at hand to execute the judgment, and in a very short space of time was master of the coveted territory. While the ministers of Charles were complaining of this act of violence, Louis seized on Courtrai and Dixmude, two towns in Flanders, which he had consented to renounce at the peace of Nimeguen,

and then with calm effrontery offered to restore them on condition of being confirmed in the possession of the duchy of Luxembourg. Stung to the quick by this monstrous proposition, the Government of Spain, helpless and unsupported as it found itself, answered by a declaration of war. Louis desired nothing better. At a signal from him armies poured down upon all parts of the Spanish Empire, upon Brabant, upon Luxembourg, and even crossing the Pyrenees advanced into Catalonia. By this time a new system of warfare had been adopted by the French marshals, which was approved of and encouraged by the pitiless Louis on account of the fright it occasioned. Hitherto the efforts of engineers in besieging a town had been directed principally against the fortifications, while private buildings were respected as far as possible. Louis, however, judging that his interest lay in making himself a terror to every woman and child in Europe, introduced the practice of bombarding. Whatever town lay in the path of the French armies was reduced to ruins. At length the Dutch, who, by their sturdy resistance, had managed to acquire some influence over the French king, induced him to accord peace to Spain, although on terms not a little humiliating to that Power. Any resistance to the all-powerful tyrant was indeed at this period impossible. Spain, under the nominal government of an almost imbecile king, was managed by a quarrelsome set of dissolute nobles, carousing priests, and bedchamber women. The Emperor, nearly as feeble in character as his kinsman Charles, was flying from one place to another, frantic with alarm at the hordes of Turks and Hungarians pressing upon his borders. The Dutch troops, compared with the legions at the command of Louis, were but a handful. And as for England, her sovereign, James II., was too deeply absorbed in his schemes for overthrowing the religion and liberties of his own subjects to attend to what passed on the Continent.

But at length, in 1688, occurred that event which brought England, like a new Power, above the political horizon, and thereby changed the aspect of European affairs. William of Orange, the most resolute and uncompromising of the many foes of Louis, was invited to fill the English throne.

moment of his departure from Holland, Louis was fortunately