Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/613

LOUIS XIV.] FRANCE 577 5. Amsterdam iu fury of despair rose on the De Witts and murdered them both, and called on William of Orange to rescue the state. He at once accepted the perilous task, and with equal skill and courage saved the republic, first by flooding the country, so as to defend Amsterdam from a land-attack, and then by arousing the jealousies of Germany and Spain. Louis had gone back to Paris ; his armies achieved nothing more in 1672. In 1673 the in terest of the war lay in the seige of Maestricht ; for Germany was no longer a safe French roadway, and the line of the Mouse was necessary, if Holland was to be reached at all. Maestricht fell ; but then no more was done. Louis returned again in triumph to Paris, and the war lagged. At this time (August 1673) a great league of the Hague was formed against France ; its members were the emperor, the Spaniards, and the Dutch ; the young stallholder became the leader of the opposition to Louis XIV. The campaign on the Rhine, in which William of Orange and Montecuculi were pitted against Turenne and Conde, while the duke of Orleans attacked the Spanish Netherlands, went on the whole against France. The allies took Bonn, and thus compelled the Rhine-princes to abandon France. The Great Elector, Frederick William of Brandenburg, who had hitherto leant towards the French, in 1674 joined the allies ; public feeling in England forced Charles II. to make peace with the United Provinces. Sweden, jealous of Brandenburg, remained as almost the sole ally of France. In this year Turenne was charged with the duty of de fending the Alsace frontier ; the war, from being offensive, had become strictly defensive, except in Franche Com to", which was retaken by Louis in a six weeks campaign, and the ancient county now fell for ever into the hands of France. When the king s brilliant campaign was over, Turenne pushed forward into the Palatinate, defeated the imperialists at Sinzheim, and then deliberately destroyed the whole country ; this was the svell-known first destruction of that fair territory. The allies in September crossed the Rhine at Mainz and then at Strasburg, occupying all the plain of Alsace. It seemed as if Turenne could do little to arrest them. He observed them till winter had set in, and Ihen, making his wonderful march along the wesl flanks of the Vosges mountains, suddenly came out in force at Belfort, and drove the Germans from point to point, till he had entirely cleared them oul of Alsace. As Ihe wasting of the Palatinate was the one great blot on his career, so this famous march raised his strategic fame to its highest point. In the north the campaign was not so brilliant ; William of Orange lost the hard-fought battle of Senef, and was unable to carry out his plans for penetrating into France. When he had retaken Grave, the campaign of 1674 was over. The campaign of 1675 on the Rhine was to be once more a trial of strength between Turenne and Monlecuculi. The great Turenne, however, was killed by a chance cannon- shot, and the whole plans of the French were shattered. Marshal Cre"quy was defeated at Saarbriick ; the advan tages gained by the king in the north, where he had secured the Meuse by taking Liege, Limburg, and Dinant, were altogether neutralized ; the army destined for Holland had to help the dispirited army of the east. Conde, who here lought his last battles, upheld the honour of the French arms on the Rhine, and, having secured Alsace for his master, now withdrew from warfare altogether. The age of an inferior series of generals begins. In 1676 the war was feeble; nothing was done in the north ; in the east the Germans took Philipsburg, a place of the utmost value to France before she had got Strasburg. On sea, however, the year was far more brilliant : in the Mediterranean Du Quesne in two great battles destroyed the combined fleets of Holland and Spain ; and in the second battle off Palermo, Ruyter himself perished. Both France and Holland now began to wish for peace ; the Dutch, seeing their navy ruined, and conscious that they could not recover Maestricht, were very weary of war ; and the French were also fretting under the burdens of the struggle, which had ruined all Colbert s plans for the de velopment of their commerce and wealth. Troubles broke out in more than one district. Negotiations went on, and war also. In 1677 the French arms were more successful ; the duke of Orleans, whom his brother never forgave for it, defeated William of Orange al Cassel, and was never again put in command; the French overran all Flanders; the duke of Lorraine was completely defeated by Marshal Crequy. Towards the end of this year William of Orange was espoused to his young kinswoman, Mary, daughter of the duke of York, and early in 1678 King Charles was obliged to declare war on his royal patron. These things swelled the tide in favour of peace, The burgher party of Amsterdam, afraid of William s growing power, leanl strongly on that side ; Charles II. had never been sincere in his declaration of war, and gladly forwarded the wishes of Louis. Finally, the peace of Nimwegen closed the war. The first treaty was one between Holland and France, which restored Maestricht, the only place William had not retaken, to the Dutch ; a friendly treaty of commerce was attached to it. The second treaty was between Spain and France ; while the king restored some strong places to the Spaniards, they ceded a chain of strong frontier-cilies to him ; France became mistress of Valenciennes, Conde", Bou- chain, Maubeuge, Cambrai, Saint-Omer, Aire, Ypres, and other towns. They also ceded Franche Comte , which has ever since been French. Thirdly, there was a treaty with the German princes, which reaffirmed the treaty of Miinster of 1 648. France ceded Philipsburg, and retained Freiburg in the Brisgau. The peace of Nimwegen was but a starting point for further ambitious steps, yet it formed the highest point of the greatness of Louis. His fortunes seemed to rise a little higher through the " reunion policy " in the next few years ; yet he was already beginning to descend from the topmost height. After this peace France could not enough praise and flatter her great monarch ; all thought of resistance died away ; the needy nobles flocked to his court and begged for place, they did not dream of asking for power ; the king absorbed them into all possible offices army and navy, finance, in all were to be seen swarms of noblemen ; it is to Louis XIV. that the absolute and fatal severance between noble officer and peasant soldier is due. The clergy were kept in fit subjection ; no great cardinal now could overshadow the throne ; the Jesuits were in full favour, masters of speech, miracles of per suasiveness, they set the fashion of that age of pulpit elo quence, which is perhaps the most marked of the literary characteristics of the reign. These were the days of Bour- daloue and Bossuet. From this time to about 1685 the French monarchy stands at its highest ; Europe is amazed and paralysed ; France if exhausted is full of glory ; the king has become more august and magnificent as he has grown older, and now in the prime of life is, as has been said, " if not the greatest king, the finest actor of royalty the world has ever seen." One person, at anyrate, was dissatisfied with, and suspicious of, the peace of Nimwegen ; and that was William of Orange. Four days after the peace had been signed, he made a sudden attack on the French camp at St Denis near Mons. Marshal Luxembourg was taken by surprise; but the French troops soon recovered and drove out their Dutch assailants with heavy loss. With this uncalled-for bloodshed the war ended. The history of the next decade of years in France justified to the full the disapproval William had so roughly expressed, Ihough it could not justify the bloodshed and the failure at IX. 73 1677-85. Tlie peace of Nim- Louis XIV. at his highest.