A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times Volume V Part 20

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 languis.h.i.+ng for that moment," he wrote six months before to Heinsius.

All the allies had sent their amba.s.sadors 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 pus.h.i.+ng 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sembled 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 s.h.i.+ps ash.o.r.e; but in this King James and Marshal Bellefonds opposed him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 pa.s.sion, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d; 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 G.o.d 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." n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sion 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 counts.h.i.+p 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 amba.s.sadors 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 a.s.sisting the King of England, there are no grounds for fearing lest he should find any a.s.sistance 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 pa.s.sed 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 rest.i.tution 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d knows if we are in a position to dictate laws to France." The emperor yielded, despite the ill humor of the Protestant princes. For the ease of their consciences they joined England and Holland in making a move on behalf of the French Reformers. Louis XIV.

refused to discuss the matter, saying, "It is my business, which concerns none but me." Up to this day the refugees had preserved some hope, henceforth their country was lost to them; many got themselves naturalized in the countries which had given them asylum.

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

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

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

France was breathing again after nine years of a desperate war, but she was breathing uneasily, and as it were in expectation of fresh efforts.

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

Meanwhile the King of Spain, Charles II., dying as he was, was regularly besieged at Madrid by the queen, his second wife, Mary Anne of Neuburg, sister of the empress, as well as by his minister, Cardinal Porto-Carrero. The compet.i.tors for the succession were numerous; the King of France and the emperor claimed their rights in the name of their mothers and wives, daughters of Philip III. and Philip IV.; the Elector of Bavaria put up the claims of his son by right of his mother, Mary Antoinette of Austria, daughter of the emperor; for a short time Charles II. had adopted this young prince; the child died suddenly at Madrid in 1699. For a long time past King Louis XIV. had been secretly negotiating for the part.i.tion of the King of Spain's dominions, not--with the emperor, who still hoped to obtain from Charles II. a will in favor of his second son, the Archduke Charles, but with England and Holland, deeply interested as they were in maintaining the equilibrium between the two kingly houses which divided Europe. William III. considered himself certain to obtain the acceptance by the emperor of the conditions subscribed by his allies. On the 13th and 15th of May, 1700, after long hesitation and a stubborn resistance on the part of the city of Amsterdam, the treaty of part.i.tion was signed in London and at the Hague.

"King William is honorable in all this business," said a letter to the king from his amba.s.sador, Count de Tallard; "his conduct is sincere; he is proud--none can be more so than he; but he has a modest manner, though none can be more jealous in all that concerns his rank."

The treaty of part.i.tion secured to the dauphin all the possessions of Spain in Italy, save Milaness, which was to indemnify the Duke of Lorraine, whose duchy pa.s.sed to France; Spain, the Indies, and the Low Countries were to belong to Archduke Charles. Great was the wrath at Vienna when it was known that the treaty was signed. "Happily," said the minister, Von Kaunitz, to the Marquis of Villars, amba.s.sador of France, "there is One on high who will work for us in these part.i.tions." "That One," replied M. de Villars, "will approve of their justice." "It is something new, however, for the King of England and for Holland to part.i.tion the monarchy of Spain," continued the count. "Allow me,"

replied M. de Villars, "to excuse them in your eyes; those two powers have quite recently come out of a war which cost them a great deal, and the emperor nothing; for, in fact, you have been at no expense but against the Turks. You had some troops in Italy, and in the empire two regiments only of hussars which were not on its pay-list; England and Holland alone bore all the burden." William III. was still negotiating with the emperor and the German princes to make them accept the treaty of part.i.tion, when it all at once became known in Europe that Charles II.

had breathed his last at Madrid on the 1st of November, 1700, and that, by a will dated October 2, he disposed of the Spanish monarchy in favor of the Duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV.

This will was the work of the council of Spain, at the head of which sat Cardinal Porto-Carrero. "The national party," says M. Mignet in his "Introduction aux Doc.u.ments relatifs de la Succession d'Espagne,_ "detested the Austrians because they had been so long in Spain; it liked the French because they were no longer there. The former had been there time enough to weary by their dominion, whilst the latter were served by the mere fact of their removal." Singlehanded, Louis XIV. appeared powerful enough to maintain the integrity of the Spanish monarchy before the face and in the teeth of all the compet.i.tors. "The King of Spain was beginning to see the, things of this world by the light alone of that awful torch which is lighted to lighten the dying." [_Memoires de St.

Simon,_ t. iii. p. 16]; wavering, irresolute, distracted within himself, he asked the advice of Pope Innocent XII., who was favorable to France.

The hopes of Louis XIV. had not soared so high; on the 9th of November, 1700, he heard at one and the same time of Charles II.'s death and the contents of his will.

It was a solemn situation. The acceptance by France of the King of Spain's will meant war; the refusal did not make peace certain; in default of a French prince the crown was to go to Archduke Charles; neither Spain nor Austria would hear of dismemberment; could they be forced to accept the treaty of part.i.tion which they had hitherto rejected angrily? The king's council was divided; Louis XIV. listened in silence to the arguments of the dauphin and of the ministers; for a moment the resolution was taken of holding by the treaty of part.i.tion; next day the king again a.s.sembled his council without as yet making known his decision; on Tuesday, November 16, the whole court thronged into the galleries of Versailles; it was known that several couriers had arrived from Madrid; the king sent for the Spanish amba.s.sador into his closet.

"The Duke of Anjou had repaired thither by the back way," says the Duke of St. Simon in his Memoires; the king, introducing him to him, told him he might salute him as his king. The instant afterwards the king, contrary to all custom, had the folding-doors thrown open, and ordered everybody who was there--and there was a crowd--to come in; then, casting his eyes majestically over the numerous company, "Gentlemen," he said, introducing the Duke of Anjou, "here is the King of Spain. His birth called him to that crown; the last king gave it him by his will; the grandees desired him, and have demanded him of me urgently; it is the will of Heaven, and I have yielded with pleasure." And, turning to his grandson, "Be a good Spaniard," he said; "that is from this moment your first duty; but remember that you are French born in order to keep up the union between the two nations; that is the way to render them happy and to preserve the peace of Europe." Three weeks later the young king was on the road to Spain. There are no longer any Pyrenees," said Louis XIV., as he embraced his grandson. The rights of Philip V. to the crown of France had been carefully reserved by a formal act of the king's.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Here is the King of Spain."----475]

Great were the surprise and wrath in Europe; William III. felt himself personally affronted. "I have no doubt," he wrote to Heinsius, "that this unheard-of proceeding on the part of France has caused you as much surprise as it has me; I never had much confidence in engagements contracted with France, but I confess I never could have supposed that that court would have gone so far as to break, in the face of Europe, so solemn a treaty before it had even received the finis.h.i.+ng stroke.

Granted that we have been dupes; but when, beforehand, you are resolved to hold your word of no account, it is not very difficult to overreach your mail. I shall be blamed perhaps for having relied upon France, I who ought to have known by the experience of the past that no treaty has ever bound her! Would to G.o.d I might be quit for the blame, but I have only too many grounds for fearing that the fatal consequences of it will make themselves felt shortly. I groan in the very depths of my spirit to see that in this country the majority rejoice to find the will preferred by France to the maintenance of the treaty of part.i.tion, and that too on the ground that the will is more advantageous for England and Europe.

This opinion is founded partly on the youth of the Duke of Anjou. 'He is a child,' they say; 'he will be brought up in Spain; he will be indoctrinated with the principles of that monarchy, and hee will be governed by the council of Spain;' but these are surmises which it is impossible for me to entertain, and I fear that we shall before long find out how erroneous they are. Would it not seem as if this profound indifference with which, in this country, they look upon everything that takes place outside of this island, were a punishment from Heaven?

Meanwhile, are not our causes for apprehension and our interests the same as those of the peoples of the continent?"

William III. was a more far-sighted politician than his subjects either in England or Holland. The States General took the same view as the English. "Public funds and shares have undergone a rise at Amsterdam,"

wrote Heinsius to the King of Englaiid; "and although this rests on nothing solid, your Majesty is aware how much influence such a fact has."

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

William of Orange had not deceived himself in thinking that Louis XIV.

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

"The eighteenth century opened with a fulness of glory and unheard-of prosperity; "but Louis XIV. did not suffer himself to be lulled to sleep by the apparent indifference with which Europe, the empire excepted, received the elevation of Philip V. to the throne of Spain. On the 6th of February, 1701, the seven barrier towns of the Spanish Low Countries, which were occupied by Dutch garrisons in virtue of the peace of Ryswick, opened their gates to the French on an order from the King of Spain.

"The instructions which the Elector of Bavaria, governor of the Low Countries, had given to the various governors of the places, were so well executed," says M. de Vault in his account of the campaign in Flanders, "that we entered without any hinderance. Some of the officers of the Dutch troops grumbled, and would have complained, but the French general officers who had led the troops pacified them, declaring that they did not come as enemies, and that all they wanted was to live in good understanding with them."

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