Chapter XX: Louis Xiv, Spain, and Holland (1)

I doubt whether any human being ever enjoyed, in greater
perfection, the blessing of nerves toned to habitual energy,
and exempt from all morbid sensitiveness. Heat, cold, pain,
fatigue, and hunger seemed to have no power over him. Not only
his delicate courtiers but his hardy veterans admired the
stoicism of their invulnerable king; and his mental composure
was on a level with his bodily hardihood. No provocation could
excite him to unseemly anger, and no calamity could depress him
to unmanly dejection. If he was often the victim, he was never
the slave of appetite or passion. Though constantly exposed to
the allurements of the most exquisite flattery, and the most
fascinating caresses, he never yielded himself to the guidance
of any favourite, male or female; but adhered, with immutable
constancy and calmness, to the ministers whom he had either
trained or chosen.--STEPHEN.[n]

[Sidenote: [1661-1679 A.D.]]

The foreign situation in 1661 was most favourable. If it was necessary to wind up the affairs of Mazarin, all that had to be done abroad was to gather the fruits and enjoy the glory acquired. Europe was basking in a peace so profound that not a cloud seemed to threaten it. The powers were all occupied in reorganising their forces, some like England in reconstructing their government. Louis XIV was one of the freest of sovereigns; he was the most powerful, thanks to Mazarin; and he became the wealthiest, thanks to Colbert.

He desired them to preserve peace and give no offence to Europe. Nevertheless he had inherited from Mazarin a fixed plan, and certain projects in harmony with the spirit of his government. His ambition was to invalidate the renunciation of Maria Theresa, in such a manner as to create a right for himself or his sons to the Spanish succession, or at least to the Netherlands.[127]

He charged the archbishop of Embrun, his ambassador at Madrid, to demand that the renunciation be revoked. He maintained that it was not _ipso facto_, the infanta not having renounced her rights and the court of Spain having itself thus decided; that in all respects it had failed to obtain the necessary ratification; finally that the condition on which it had been made, the payment of a dowry of 500,000 crowns, had not been complied with. He offered, in case his plea was accepted, to ally himself the more closely with Spain, and even abandon all claims to Portugal in her favour; but Philip and his ministers eluded the question and refused to give an opinion.

[Sidenote: [1661-1662 A.D.]]

During the negotiations a serious affair occurred in London, where the baron de Vatteville, the Spanish ambassador, claimed precedence over the count d’Estrades, the ambassador of France. On October 8th, 1661, the Swedish envoy, the count de Brahé, was to be presented to the king of England. As the procession was about to start, D’Estrades tried to make his coach pass first, and a troop of armed men under orders from Vatteville stopped it. The Londoners took the part of the Spaniards; there was a fight--some were killed and wounded. In the end the French were obliged to retire.[b]

At this news Louis XIV ordered the Spanish ambassador to leave France, and the French ambassador to Spain to demand the punishment of Vatteville and a reparation which should make such affairs henceforth impossible.[c]

Philip IV granted this without much difficulty. Vatteville was recalled; and March 22nd, 1662, the marquis de Fuentes declared at the Louvre before the assembled court that the Spanish envoys would claim no precedence over those of France, except at the court of Vienna where they had long been accustomed to occupy the first place on account of the close ties which united the two branches of the house of Austria.

Meanwhile Spain still refused to recognise the rights of the infanta, and Louis XIV continued to uphold the Portuguese;[128] he even assisted in bringing about the marriage of Charles of England to a princess of the house of Braganza, who received Tangier, Bombay, and a considerable sum as dowry. Charles II sought, as did Cromwell, to develop English commerce and the navy, but he was needy, extravagant, and he feared the parsimony of parliament. Louis XIV advanced him money in secret and offered to buy back Dunkirk and Mardyck.[129] The bargain was concluded November 27th, 1662, and France recovered the two towns which Mazarin had turned over to Cromwell with regret.

By this acquisition Louis XIV took a first step towards the Netherlands, the object of his whole ambition. He awaited the moment when the question of Philip IV’s successor should be opened to uphold the rights of the infanta in the Belgian provinces, even though the determination of these rights was still a matter of debate. He wavered between the desire to reunite the major part of the Spanish Netherlands to France, giving the rest to Holland, or to occupy only a few places and erect the ten Belgian provinces into a republic or a neutral state. The latter plan was the less brilliant, but the easiest to carry out; and a state thus constituted would oppose a barrier to foreign invasion. Louis XIV negotiated in secret to obtain the eventual concurrence of Holland in his plans, but in spite of the efforts of the grand pensionary, the celebrated Jan de Witt, he could not obtain this. The Dutch understood too well that a Belgian republic would be dependent on Louis and would not oppose his ambitions.[b] Besides this the Dutch had a cause for complaint in the tax of 50 sous a ton, placed by Fouquet in 1659, upon foreign ships trading in French ports. After long debates this tax was reduced by half for Dutch ships and a defensive and commercial treaty was signed in 1662 in which France and Holland agreed to protect each other’s rights on land and sea.[a]

The duchies of Lorraine and Bar had been returned to Duke Charles IV in 1661 only on condition that he would not rebuild the ramparts of the towns, that he would only maintain one fortress, Marsal, and that French troops should have the right of passing through his territory. These conditions were not fulfilled. Louis lost patience and sent an army corps to Marsal. The duke bent before the necessity, and gave up Marsal on condition that he might hold the rest of his estates according to the terms of the treaty of 1661.[c]

Louis, admirably counselled by Lionne, took care in preparing the execution of his designs against the Netherlands not to arouse the defiance of Europe. He managed only ostensibly to sustain the Portuguese; simply authorising them to take into their service Marshal de Schomberg and a body of French volunteers which helped them defend their liberties.[130]

[Sidenote: [1663-1665 A.D.]]

While Louis was feeling his strength he eagerly seized any opportunity for military enterprise which would give a high idea of himself and serve his policy.[b] In spite of his rough treatment of the head of the church in 1662-1664, he displayed zeal for the interests of Christianity against its great enemy the Turks, who continued to press the siege of Crete[131] and extend their conquests in Hungary and to desolate by piracy the entire coast of the Mediterranean. Divers plans were proposed in the king’s council for attacking the Ottoman power on the Barbary coasts and repressing the pirates. A squadron commanded by the duke de Beaufort, the former hero of the Fronde, landed 5,000 picked soldiers at Jijelli, a small Algerian port between Bougie and Bona. Jijelli was taken without difficulty (July 22nd, 1664), but discord arose between Beaufort and his officers. They were soon hard pressed by the Turks of Algiers, reinforced by numerous Arab and Kabyle bands, while Beaufort cruised in front of Tunis instead of making a diversion against Algiers, as the king had ordered. The military resources of the Algerians and especially their artillery were greater than the French had imagined; discord broke out, and after having repelled a few attacks the French were compelled to re-embark in such haste that they left their cannon behind.

But the successes of Beaufort’s squadron, which the famous Chevalier Paul commanded, soon wiped out the stigma of this reverse; two Algerian flotillas were annihilated during the course of the year 1665.[c]

A touching example of self-sacrifice was an incident of this war. The dey of Algiers had among his captives an officer from St. Malo, named Porcon de la Barbinais; he sent him to offer to the king proposals of peace, making him promise to return in case his mission failed. The lives of 600 Christians were dependent upon his keeping his word. The propositions were not accepted. Porcon knew it. He went to St. Malo, regulated his affairs, then returned to Algiers, certain of the fate which awaited him. The dey had him decapitated. This man was the equal of Regulus, yet he is little known to fame.[d]

Reasons and pretexts for war with the porte were not long wanting. In 1664 some acts of bad faith on the part of the viziers were taken as an excuse for sending 6,000 men under the orders of Coligny-Saligny into Hungary, which the Turks were invading. This was a means of dissipating the religious clouds which the threats against the pope had raised at Rome and elsewhere. Louis XIV had still another reason. He had undertaken in obtaining a [three years’] prorogation of the league of the Rhine (1663) to furnish a contingent to his imperial allies in case the empire should be threatened. He attached the highest importance to maintaining a league whose principal object would be to close the road to the Netherlands to Austrian troops if ever war should break out between France and Austria, and he believed it all the more easy to play the rôle of protector in Germany since the emperor’s power there had sensibly declined since the Treaty of Westphalia.

Coligny-Saligny joined the Austro-German army commanded by Montecuculi; the French took a considerable part in the combat at Körmend, and especially in the battle of St. Gotthard (August 1st, 1664), where they paid dear for the principal honour of the victory. But the emperor and Austria, grateful though they were, could not pardon the French for having claimed to have saved the empire. Leopold hastened to treat with the Turks, and was as eager to deliver himself from his auxiliaries as he was from his enemies.[b]

Indeed the emperor was alarmed, and not without reason, to encounter the hand of Louis everywhere. A defensive alliance was concluded in August, 1663, between France and Denmark, as the result of a commercial treaty, advantageous to the French marine. A secret negotiation of the very highest importance was, about the same time, entered upon with Poland. Since 1661 that republic had taken Louis XIV as arbiter in its quarrels with Moscovy. In 1663, King John Casimir Vasa, discouraged by Poland’s constant woes, determined to lay down the crown: his wife, a princess of that branch of the Gonzagas which had long been established in France, entered into communication with Louis XIV to bring about the election of the duke d’Enghien, son of the Great Condé, to the Polish throne. With regret Louis saw Poland plunging to her own ruin, and decided to arrest the disaster by doing again that in which Henry III had so disgracefully failed--infusing French spirit into the land of the Jagellons. Colbert pushed the king to the same policy.[c]

THE WAR OF THE QUEEN’S RIGHTS (1667-1668 A.D.)

Meanwhile Louis XIV had not succeeded in having Maria Theresa’s act of renunciation revoked, and he now thought of compelling Madrid to recognise the right of devolution.

Such was the name given in Brabant and some of the other Belgian provinces to the law, by virtue of which, when there were children of two different marriages, those of the first inherited in preference to those of the second. Louis XIV claimed Brabant and its annexes, in the name of Maria Theresa. Philip IV rejected this new claim, which was most contestable, since if the rule of devolution really existed in the above-mentioned provinces, it had to be proven that it applied to the succession of princes as well as to those of private individuals. Moreover all the acts emanating from Spanish sovereigns since Charles V were manifestly contradictory of this. Nevertheless both parties remained on pacific terms until the death of Philip IV and Anne of Austria. The king of Spain expired after a lingering illness September 17th, 1665. The queen-mother, his sister, died of a cancer January 20th, 1666, after constant efforts to maintain peace between the two crowns.

Philip IV directed in his will that the 500,000 crowns constituting Maria Theresa’s dowry should be paid, but he regulated the succession in such a manner as to confirm the renunciation of that princess and to exclude all pretensions of the house of France to any portion whatsoever of his estates. He left the throne of Spain to a sickly infant scarcely able to walk, and who nobody believed would live. Foreseeing the contingency by which the death of this child, the young Charles II, would extinguish the male line, he stipulated that the throne should pass in that event to his second daughter Margaret and her children. Margaret was then fourteen years of age; she was betrothed to the emperor Leopold, and did in fact marry him the following year.

The reign of an infant under the regency of a foreigner, his mother, Maria Anna of Austria, the exhausted condition of the Spanish realm on account of the Portuguese war, offered a magnificent opportunity for Louis XIV’s ambition, but he waited until 1667 before declaring his project. Impatient as he was, a maritime war between England and Holland retarded the execution of his plans.

Under Charles II, as under Cromwell, England had in Holland a rival in commerce and the marine. Charles II, who was desirous of flattering public sentiment and who had the same reason as the Protector to seek in foreign war a diversion to calm restless spirits, entertained, moreover, a profound antipathy for De Witt and other leaders of the republican government at the Hague. He wished to re-establish the stadholdership to the profit of the young William of Orange, his sister’s son.[132] In this state of feeling it only required a hostile meeting between some Dutch and English ships off the African coast to precipitate the two navies into a fearful war.

The Dutch convinced themselves that they were the attacked party and demanded assistance of Louis XIV in fulfilment of the guarantee he had given them in 1662. At first Louis refused, alleging that it was not proved that the English were the aggressors, and he offered his mediation. His desire was to act cautiously with regard to England and not drive her to an alliance which Spain was seeking. As to the Dutch, he was beginning to regard them with distrust. The grand pensionary De Witt joined to his fine qualities a shrewdness, a proud reserve, and a talent for making advances without committing himself, which were little to the taste of the French agents. D’Estrades, ambassador to the Hague in 1665, considered an English alliance more desirable for France than one with Holland.

[Sidenote: [1665-1667 A.D.]]

The offer of mediation was declined. Louis XIV tried at least to confine his struggle to a naval war, for he did not wish to see the English on the continent. Meanwhile the states-general were insisting on the complete execution of the guarantee treaty. Louis ended by deciding to declare war on England. He gave out that he wished to convert the world to the religion which kept him to his word. But he informs us himself that there were still other reasons; he wished to keep Holland from carrying out her projects against the Netherlands, and prevent a reconciliation with England that might some day be a serious danger to France. He therefore upheld her, but he kept as much as possible to the rôle of a looker-on, and let the English and Dutch fleets almost annihilate each other in the four great combats of two campaigns. The duke de Beaufort and the Brest squadron never left the Channel. The French never fought the English except in the West Indies, where they captured a portion of the island of St. Christopher.

(1611-1675)]

In the beginning of 1667 Louis XIV supported Sweden’s offer of mediation, and Breda was chosen as the seat of a congress. Besides the war, England was suffering from another scourge--the plague of 1666. Charles II was satisfied with France’s promise of a personal subsidy and with the restitution of St. Christopher without indemnity. The treaty was signed July 31st. Louis XIV did not await this moment to enter Flanders. He based his aggression on the formal refusal of all his demands by the court of Madrid, declaring that, having exhausted all peaceful means of obtaining justice, he was now going to take possession of what belonged to Maria Theresa.[b]

The league of the Rhine assured Louis of at least the neutrality of Germany; the emperor was not prepared for war; Europe, favourable or intimidated, beheld with astonishment King Louis XIV take the field in the month of May, 1667. He had collected an army of fifty thousand men carefully armed and equipped under the direction of Turenne, whom Louvois still obeyed with docility. This fine army was not unequal to the task of vindicating the queen’s rights to the duchy of Brabant, the marquisate of Antwerp, Limburg, Hainault, the county of Namur, and other territories. “Heaven not having established a tribunal on earth from which the kings of France may demand justice, the most Christian king can expect it only of his arms,” said the manifesto sent to the court of Spain. Louis XIV set out with Turenne. Marshal de Créqui was commissioned to keep a watch on Germany.

The Spaniards were caught unprepared; Armentières, Charleroi, Douai, and Tournay had but inadequate garrisons and succumbed almost without a blow. While the army was occupied with the siege of Courtrai, Louis XIV returned to meet the queen at Compiègne; the whole court followed him to the camp. “I brought the queen to Flanders,” said Louis XIV, “to show her to the people of that country, who indeed received her with all the joy imaginable, showing that they were sorry there had not been more time to prepare themselves to receive her more worthily.” It was at Courtrai that the queen took up her residence. Marshal de Turenne had gone in the direction of Dendermonde, but the Flemings had opened their sluices and the country was inundated; he was obliged to fall back on Oudenarde; the town was taken in two days. The king, still followed by the court, laid siege to Lille. Vauban, already celebrated as an engineer, formed his lines of circumvallation. Créqui’s army rejoined that of Turenne; an effort on the part of the governor of the Netherlands to relieve the town was anticipated; the Spanish troops sent for that purpose arrived too late and were defeated as they retired; the citizens of Lille had forced the garrison to capitulate; Louis XIV entered the place on the 27th of August, ten days after the trenches were opened. On the 2nd of September the king set out on the way back to St. Germain; Turenne also took the town of Alost before going into winter quarters.

THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE

[Sidenote: [1667-1668 A.D.]]

The first campaign of Louis XIV had been merely a warlike game almost without danger or bloodshed; it had nevertheless sufficed to alarm Europe. Scarcely had peace been concluded at Breda before another negotiation was secretly entered into between England, Holland, and Sweden. It was in vain that King Charles II was personally inclined to an alliance with France; his people had their eyes open to the dangers which Europe incurred from the arms of Louis XIV. On the 23rd of January, 1668, the celebrated Treaty of the Triple Alliance was signed at the Hague. The three powers requested the king of France to grant the Netherlands a truce till the month of May, in order to give time to treat with Spain and obtain from her, as France demanded, the final cession of the places conquered or of Franche-Comté in exchange. In reality the triple alliance was resolved to protect helpless Spain against France; a secret article pledged the three allies to take arms to restrain Louis XIV and if possible to bring him back to the position fixed by the Treaty of the Pyrenees. At the same moment Portugal made peace with Spain, which recognised her independence.

The king refused to concede the prolonged armistice which had been demanded of him: “I grant it till the 31st of March,” he had said, “as I do not wish to miss the season for taking the field.” The marquis of Castel Rodrigo laughed at this: “I am content,” he said, “with the suspension of arms which winter imposes on the king of France.” The governor of the Netherlands was mistaken; Louis XIV was about to prove that his soldiers, like those of Gustavus Adolphus, did not know what winter was. He had confided the command of his new army to the prince of Condé, who had been amnestied nine years before but had hitherto been a stranger to the royal favours.[g]

Under pretext of being in Burgundy for the estates, Monsieur le Prince had made careful note that Franche-Comté was without troops and unsuspecting, because the inhabitants did not doubt that the king would grant them neutrality as in the last war, since they had sent to him to demand it. He kept up the delusion.[e]

The gaieties of St. Germain were at their height, when in the depth of winter in the month of January, 1668, all were astonished to see troops marching in all directions, coming and going on the roads of Champagne and in the Three Bishoprics--trains of artillery, wagons of munitions stopping under various pretexts in the roads which lead from Champagne to Burgundy. That part of France was filled with movement of which the cause was unknown. The uninitiated out of interest, and the courtiers out of curiosity, exhausted themselves in conjectures; Germany was alarmed; the object of these preparations and peculiar actions was a mystery to everybody. The secrets of conspiracies were never more closely guarded than in this enterprise of Louis XIV.

Finally, on February 2nd, the king left St. Germain with the young duke d’Enghien, son of the Great Condé, and several courtiers; the other officers being at the rendezvous with their troops. He travelled on horseback by long stages and arrived at Dijon. Twenty thousand men, assembled by twenty different routes, found themselves on the same day in Franche-Comté, several leagues from Besançon, the Great Condé at their head.[f] Besançon and Salins surrendered at sight of the troops. When the king arrived he went to Dôle and caused counterscarps and demilunes to be set up. Four or five hundred men were killed here. The amazed inhabitants, seeing themselves surrounded by troops and without hope of succour, surrendered on Shrove Tuesday, February 14th. The king at the same time marched to Gray. The governor made as though he would defend himself, but the marquis d’Yenne, governor-general under Castel Rodrigo, who was of the country and had all his property there, came to surrender to the king and, going to Gray, persuaded the governor to surrender. The king entered Gray on Sunday, the 19th of February, and there caused a _Te Deum_ to be sung, having the governor-general at his right hand and the governor of the town itself on his left; and the same day he set out to return. Thus in twenty-two days of the month of February he had started from St. Germain, had been to Franche-Comté, taken complete possession of it, and returned to St. Germain.[e] The king was back at St. Germain preparing enormous armaments for the month of April; he had given the prince of Condé the government of Franche-Comté.

_Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668 A.D.)_

War seemed imminent. The last days of the armistice were at hand. “The opinion of peace which prevails in France is a malady which is becoming widespread,” Louvois wrote in the middle of March; “but we shall soon be cured, since the time to take the field is drawing near. You must give out everywhere that the Spaniards will not have peace.” Louvois was uttering a shameless falsehood; the Spaniards were without resources, but they had still less courage than resources; and consented to the abandonment of all the places in the Netherlands conquered in 1667.

A congress was opened at Aix-la-Chapelle and was presided over by the nuncio of the new pope Clement IX, who was as favourable to France as his predecessor Innocent X had been to Spain--“a phantom arbitrator between phantom plenipotentiaries,” says Voltaire. The real negotiations took place at St. Germain. “I did not only take care,” writes Louis XIV, “to profit by the present conjuncture, but also to put myself in a position to turn to good account those which seemed likely to ensue. Amid the great augmentations which my fortune might receive, nothing seemed to me more necessary than to acquire for myself, among my smaller neighbours, a reputation for moderation and probity which might quiet in them those emotions of terror which all naturally feel at the aspect of too great power. I must not lack the means of breaking with Spain when I wish to do so; Franche-Comté which I surrendered might be reduced to such a condition that I could be master of it at any time, and my new conquests, well secured, would open me a surer entry to the Netherlands.” Determined by these wise motives, the king gave the order to sign; and the 2nd of May, 1668, the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was concluded. Before surrendering Franche-Comté the king gave orders to demolish the fortifications of Dôle and Gray; at the same time he commissioned Vauban to fortify Ath, Lille, and Tournay. The triple alliance was triumphant, the Dutch especially.[g]

PROJECTS AGAINST HOLLAND (1668-1672 A.D.)

The first period of the diplomatic and military history of Louis XIV closes with the treaty that ended the War of the Queen’s Rights. A new era is about to open in which Louis will cast aside the compass that was so safely directing the ship of France to follow no other guides than his passion and his fortune.

Recent events had succeeded in crushing the old French sympathies for Holland, much weakened since the Dutch defection of 1648. Resentment against the unfaithful ally, very keen in the active and military element of the nation, had reached a point of exasperation with the king, who was not unaware of the secret clauses of the Treaty of the Hague.[133] Louis, who had laid down his arms much less for the confederates of the Hague than for the sake of the future Spanish succession, bore a grudge against Holland, not so much for having really arrested his progress [by having formed the triple alliance] as for having boasted of doing so. Pride had turned the head of the little republic, which plumed itself on having laid colossal Spain low, saved Denmark from the blows of Sweden, beaten, or at least quit even with England, set a limit on French conquests, and drawn into its hands three-quarters of European commerce and sea trade.

But wounded pride was far from being the only motive that turned Louis XIV against Holland. He was convinced that he must crush her in order to get Belgium, and consequently he must appear, momentarily, to forget the end in order to remove the obstacle. He might then, strictly speaking, imagine to himself that he was still pursuing his old plans, and was only changing the means of French policy; but passion might easily make him take the means for the end. This passion, generated by diplomatic disappointments, was nourished and envenomed by the dissimilarity between the institutions, principles, and beliefs of the French and Dutch governments. Holland was not only an unfaithful ally--she was a republican and Protestant nation, the home of religious and political liberty, which Louis hated with a growing hatred as his monarchy became more clearly outlined in his head.

After the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, the ruin of Holland became the king’s fixed idea. It was no longer a question of the commercial war so ably conducted by Colbert with his tariffs and his differential rights--it was a war of invasion and conquest that Louis was planning.[c]

The resolution taken, he adjourned its execution until such time as he had completed the organisation of his sea forces, which were not then on a level with those of the land, and until he could assure himself that Europe would not interfere with his plan. The able and indefatigable Lionne consecrated the last three years of his life (he died in 1671) to performing diplomatic wonders to acquire this certitude.

While he was waiting, Louis XIV neglected no opportunities that presented themselves to feed warlike passions and provide employment for his unengaged officers and troops. In 1669 he sent a volunteer corps to Crete to assist the Venetians, threatened in the capital of that island. Beaufort disappeared in a combat, and Vivonne ineffectually bombarded the grand vizier’s camp. But this was only a diversion from more important projects. Louis XIV wished to isolate Holland, and for that reason to break the triple alliance. He began by trying to detach England from it.

[Sidenote: [1669-1670 A.D.]]

The English were not less jealous than the Dutch of France’s maritime progress; they were not less frightened at Louis’ ambitions. But Charles II did not share these feelings. Although he had experienced all the hazards of fortune, the vicissitudes of his life had in nowise elevated his character. After the Treaty of Breda, he signed that of the Triple Alliance and united with the Dutch, as a concession to national sentiment. But he did not like parliament, and felt an especial aversion for the Presbyterian spirit, and the religious passions which had brought about the English Revolution. Finally, about 1670, he resolved to become a Catholic, perhaps through real conviction, perhaps through the influence of his brother, the duke of York, a secret convert to the church of Rome, who was animated by the true ardour of a neophyte; perhaps because he hoped to find in Catholicism a more solid support for his throne and his royal prerogative than in Anglicanism.

To realise his object a French alliance was indispensable. France alone could provide him with the money he needed; his court was wasteful and in debt, and parliament measured out subsidies with jealous parsimony. If France demanded the sacrifice of Holland, he was ready to make it.

Under these conditions he readily lent ear to the overtures of the French ambassadors, Ruvigny and Colbert de Croissy, the minister’s brother. He did not delay to let Louis XIV into the secret of his plans. Louis asked nothing better than to grant much on condition that England would join him in war on Holland. Nevertheless the negotiations dragged on account of the precautions necessary to secrecy, and it took more than a year to arrive finally at an understanding. When all was arranged Charles II demanded that his sister, the duchess of Orleans, should come to England and sign the treaty.[b]

_The Treaty of Dover: Death of Madame (1670 A.D.)_

On the 24th of May Madame Henrietta suddenly left the court which was at Lille and embarked at Dunkirk for Dover where Charles II was awaiting her. She persuaded Charles to sign the treaty without delay (June 1st). The English monarch led his sister to hope that he would consent that the attack on Holland should precede his declaration of Catholicism. This is what Louis XIV most wished for. The treaty, however, far from committing Charles to this course, stipulated that after Charles should have made “the said declaration,” Louis might choose the moment of attack on Holland.[134] Louis was to give Charles two millions, payable two and three months after the exchange of ratification and was to assist him with six thousand foot soldiers, if the return to Catholicism should excite trouble. Charles was to furnish Louis at least four thousand foot soldiers against Holland, Louis to reinforce the English fleet by thirty vessels, of at least forty guns, and to pay Charles an annual subsidy of three millions during the continuation of the war. The island of Walcheren (with Sluys and Causand at the mouth of the Schelde) were to go to England.

[Sidenote: [1670-1672 A.D.]]

An unforeseen catastrophe fell now like a thunder-clap upon the two royal families which had just sealed the pact of Dover. The household of Louis XIV’s brother had long been disturbed by domestic tempests. The amiable and brilliant Henrietta, adored by the court, esteemed by the king, who confided to her the most secret springs of his policy, inspired nothing but antipathy in her husband, an effeminate prince, as mediocre in mind as in heart, whose childish and strange habits have given rise to suspicion of shameful practices. The king had recently intervened in the family quarrels by imprisoning and afterwards exiling the chevalier de Lorraine, Monsieur’s favourite. After this the king had had great difficulty in compelling his brother to allow Madame Henrietta to go to Dover.

She returned in triumph; leaving Dover on the 12th of June, she appeared for a moment at St. Germain where the court was established; the 24th of June her husband took her to St. Cloud, where she had scarcely arrived when she complained of pains in her stomach and side. For several days she lingered, and on the 29th, after having drunk a glass of chicory-water, she was seized with a violent pain in the side; the next day before daybreak she was dead. In her last agony she repeated several times that she was dying of poison.

An outbreak of terrible suspicion against her husband and his people occurred at once. The king had an autopsy performed by the most celebrated physicians and surgeons of Paris, who agreed that death was due to natural causes, and that it was a wonder the princess had lived so long with her lungs and liver so gravely affected. The question, however, has remained a question of controversy among historians to this day.[135] The news of this tragic event made a great stir in England; but the real sorrow expressed by Louis XIV and the report of the physicians calmed Charles II and his court.[c]

_Treaties with Other Powers (1670-1672 A.D.)_

Already, as early as 1667, Louis XIV had privately provided for the neutrality of the empire by a secret treaty regulating the eventual partition of the Spanish monarchy. In case the little king of Spain should die without children, France was to receive the Netherlands, Franche-Comté, Navarre, Naples, and Sicily; Austria would keep Spain and the Milanese. Accordingly the emperor Leopold turned a deaf ear to the solicitations of the Dutch, who would have persuaded him to join the triple alliance; and a new agreement between France and the empire, signed secretly November 1st, 1670, reciprocally bound the two princes not to give help to their enemies. The German princes were more difficult to win over; they were beginning to be alarmed at the pretensions of France. The electors of Treves and Mainz had already assembled troops on the Rhine; and the duke of Lorraine seemed disposed to give them assistance. Louis XIV took as a pretext the erection of some fortifications contrary to the Treaty of Marsal; on the 23rd of August, 1670, he sent Marshal de Créqui into Lorraine; in the beginning of September the duchy was entirely subdued and the duke a refugee. To the emperor’s protest, the king responded that he did not want Lorraine for himself, but that he would never surrender it to anyone’s petitions. Brandenburg and Saxony alone refused neutrality point-blank; France had renounced the Protestant alliances in Germany, and the Protestant electors recognised the danger which threatened them.

Sweden also recognised it, but Gustavus Adolphus and Oxenstierna were no longer there; the memory of former alliances with France alone remained; the Swedish senators, one after another, allowed themselves to be bought. The treaty was signed the 14th of April, 1672; for an annual subsidy of 600,000 livres Sweden pledged herself to offer armed opposition to the princes of the empire who should attempt to succour the United Provinces; a space was being cleared round Holland.[136]

In spite of the secrecy which surrounded the negotiations of Louis XIV, De Witt was filled with anxiety; always favourable to the French alliance, he had sought to calm the irritation of France which imputed the triple alliance to the Dutch. Jan de Witt negotiated everywhere; Charles’ treaty with France had remained a profound secret, and the Dutch thought they could count on the good will of the English nation. They effaced the arms of England on the _Royal Charles_, a vessel taken by Tromp in 1667, and hid from sight a picture in the town hall of Dordrecht which represented the victory of Chatham with the _ruart_[137] Cornelis de Witt leaning against a cannon. These concessions to the pride of England were not made without a contest.

THE WAR WITH HOLLAND BEGINS (1672 A.D.)

The apprehensions of the grand pensionary were not without foundation; in the spring of 1672 all the negotiations of Louis XIV had been successful; his armaments were complete; he was at last about to crush the little power which had so long presented an obstacle to his designs. The king wrote in an unpublished memoir: “Amidst all my prosperity in my campaign of 1667, neither England nor the empire, both convinced of the justice of my cause, opposed themselves to the rapidity of my conquests, whatever interest they may have had to stop them. I found in my path only my good, faithful, and old-time friends, the Dutch, who instead of identifying themselves with my fortune as with the foundation of their state, sought to dictate to me and to compel me to peace, and even dared to threaten violence in case I refused to accept their interference. I confess that their insolence stung me keenly and that I was ready, at the risk of what might happen to my conquests in the Spanish Netherlands, to turn all my forces against this haughty and ungrateful nation; but having summoned prudence to my aid and considering that I had neither the number of troops nor the allies requisite for such an enterprise, I dissimulated and concluded peace on honourable conditions, resolved to postpone the punishment of this perfidy to another time.” The time had come; to the last effort at conciliation attempted in the name of the states-general, by De Groot, son of the celebrated Grotius, the king answered with a haughty threat: “When I heard that the United Provinces were endeavouring to corrupt my allies, and were urging kings, my relatives, to enter into offensive leagues against me, I sought to put myself in a position to defend myself, and I raised some troops; but I intend to have still more towards the spring, and I will then use them in the manner which I may judge the best adapted for the welfare of my states and for my glory.”[g]

(1621-1686)]

A public treaty had just been signed between France and England (February 12th), and the English, according to their custom, attacked without declaration of war. On March 23rd an English squadron assailed a Dutch merchant fleet returning from Smyrna off the isle of Wight. The Dutch defended themselves so well that the aggressors after two days of fighting were only able to capture two or three merchant ships and one man-of-war. Charles II’s declaration of war was published March 29th, six days after this fight. That of Louis XIV was launched on the 6th of April.[c]

“The king sets out to-morrow, my daughter,” writes Madame de Sévigné[i] to Madame de Grignan on the 27th of April; “there will be 100,000 men outside Paris, the two armies will join hands; the king will give orders to Monsieur, Monsieur to Monsieur le Prince, Monsieur le Prince to M. de Turenne, and M. de Turenne to the two marshals, and even to the army of Marshal de Créqui.”[g]

Ninety thousand men were gathered from Sedan to Charleroi; the bishop of Münster, the bishop of Cologne, and other German princes furnished about 20,000 more. The king led this magnificent army in person; Condé, Turenne, Luxemburg, Chamilly, were in command under him. Vauban was to take the towns, Pellisson to record the victories. What had Holland to bring in opposition to such an enemy? She had a formidable navy; two admirals, regarded to this day as the greatest of their century, Tromp and De Ruyter; rich colonies, and an immense commerce; but she had neglected her land-forces, so often dangerous in a republic; she could hardly count upon 25,000 militia, badly equipped and wholly without discipline, and 20,000 men promised by the elector of Brandenburg were at the same time very insufficient and very far away. The intestine struggles also enfeebled her; there were two parties, the one led by Jan de Witt, and entirely devoted to the cause of ancient liberty. The other aimed at the restoration of the young prince of Orange to the heritage of his ancestors, and profiting by the present danger nominated him captain-general at the age of twenty-two.

_The Passage of the Rhine (June, 1672 A.D.)_

Meanwhile Louis XIV advanced along the Maas, upon the lands of the bishop of Liège, his ally, in order not to invade Spanish territory, thence along the right bank of the Rhine from Wesel to Toll-Huys. There the inhabitants informed the prince of Condé that the dryness of the season had made the river fordable. Crossing was easy. On the other shore only 400 to 500 cavalry were to be seen and two feeble regiments of infantry without cannon. The artillery mowed down their flank. While the king’s household and the crack regiments of cavalry, in number about 15,000 men, were crossing in safety, the prince of Condé went beside them in a copper-bottomed boat. A small number of the Dutch cavalry rode into the river to give at least a semblance of resistance, but took flight immediately before the approaching multitude. Their infantry laid down their arms and begged for their lives. The French lost in that passage only the count de Nogent, and several cavalrymen who strayed from the ford and were drowned. No one would have been killed on that day had it not been for the imprudence of the young duke de Longueville. It was said that, being intoxicated, he fired his pistol at the enemy, who were begging on their knees for their lives, crying, “No quarter for that rabble!” One of their officers was killed by his shot. The Dutch infantry despairingly resumed their weapons for a moment and fired a charge which killed the duke de Longueville. A captain of cavalry, who had not taken flight with the others, ran to the prince of Condé who was mounting his horse, and pressed his pistol against the prince’s head, who by a movement turned aside and had his wrist shattered by the bullet. This was the only wound Condé ever received. The French, exasperated, charged upon that infantry, which took flight in all directions. Louis XIV crossed on a pontoon bridge with his infantry (June 12th, 1672).[d]

Such was the passage of the Rhine, celebrated ever after as one of the great events which should occupy the memories of men. That air of greatness with which the king surrounded all his actions, the fortunate rapidity of his conquests, the splendour of his reign, the idolatry of his courtiers, finally the tendency the French, above all the Parisians, have towards exaggeration joined to their ignorance concerning war which ruled in the idle life of the large cities--all this caused the passage of the Rhine to be regarded as a prodigious achievement whose fame continued to be exaggerated. The common belief was that the whole army had crossed the river swimming, in the face of a thoroughly entrenched army, and in spite of the artillery of an impregnable fortress called Tholus (Toll-Huys). It was very true that nothing could have been a more imposing sight to the foe than this passage, and if there had been a corps of serviceable troops on the other side the enterprise would have been very perilous.[f]

Fifteen years later Bossuet said in his funeral oration of the prince of Condé, “Let us leave the passage of the Rhine the prodigy of our century and of the life of Louis the Great.” But Bossuet was not writing history in his funeral orations. Neither does Napoleon in his _Mémoires_ share the enthusiasm of the sacred orator: “The passage of the Rhine is a military operation of the fourth order, since in that place the river is fordable, impoverished by the Waal, and moreover was defended by only a handful of men.” “I have seen a woman,” says Voltaire, “who crossed the Rhine twenty times at that place to defraud the customs.” The Toll-Huys was exactly what its name indicates.

THE FRENCH IN HOLLAND AND GERMANY (1672-1673 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1672-1673 A.D.]]

With the Rhine crossed, Holland was open to invasion. The provinces of Overyssel, of Gelderland, and Utrecht submitted without trying to defend themselves; there were very few hours during the day in which the king did not receive news of some victory. An officer wrote to Turenne: “If you will send me fifty cavalrymen I will take two or three fortresses with them.”

Four soldiers became in a few moments masters of Muiden, the key to Amsterdam, because the sluices by which the country surrounding the capital could be flooded were in this village. The generals called to council were anxious to march at once upon Amsterdam, Louvois thought it better to garrison the forts; the army was in this manner enfeebled and its operations retarded. Upon this the Dutch took courage once more, and concentrating the state forces into the hands of one man, raised William of Orange to the stadholdership (July 6th, 1672). This prince was to save the independence of his country.[d] Soon afterward an infuriated populace slaughtered the illustrious chiefs of the republican party, Jan and Cornelis de Witt. French historians charge William with complicity in these murders. Burnett, however, says that William “always spoke of it to me with the greatest horror possible,” and there seems no good ground to doubt that this sentiment was genuine. To suppose otherwise would seem to belie the character of this far seeing, cautious, unconquerable man.[a]

The military dictatorship confided to the prince of Orange gave a new aspect to the situation; he had the dykes cut, flooding all the country surrounding Amsterdam, and forced the French to retreat before the inundation.[d]

The French king, in the meantime, in answer to the Dutch deputies who sought for peace (De Groot was of the number), demanded for himself the limit of the Rhine, and the re-establishment of the Catholic religion in Holland, besides satisfaction to the demands of the English. The Dutch magnanimously refused such terms. The capital was for this year secure behind its waters; the French army being weakened by garrisoning so many towns. Condé pressed the monarch to dismantle these towns, and unite the army to reduce Amsterdam; but Louvois, minister-at-war, biased by his peculiar pursuits, would not consent to the demolition of a single bulwark. The consequence was that nothing more could be effected, and Louis returned, to enjoy the congratulations of his capital and the flatteries of his court.[j]

THE NEW COALITION AGAINST FRANCE (1673 A.D.)

This is an epoch of great importance. The state system of the treaty of Westphalia was really upset by Louis’ aggressions, _e.g._ the German states making common cause with Emperor; and the fear of French predominance acted from now on through the Dutch war and the War of the Spanish Succession as a new and dominant force in European politics, much as the pre-eminence of the Hapsburgs had acted before Westphalia. From now to the treaty of Utrecht, European history is on another track, and the treaty of Utrecht, which closes the foreign policy of Louis XIV, is the real end of the chapter of history we are now beginning.[a]

Neither Spain nor Germany could remain indifferent spectators of Louis XIV’s progress and Holland’s peril. Although Spain had not pronounced herself, Monterey, the governor of Brussels, had furnished the prince of Orange some auxiliary troops. The elector of Brandenburg, Frederick William--“the Great Elector”--promised his assistance to the states-general by a secret treaty. He also agitated the north German courts and that of Vienna, representing to them the necessity of a coalition. Austria, more reserved, was none the less exasperated in spite of the arrangement to which she had consented, and concluded a ten years’ defensive alliance with the great elector. The emperor likewise concluded another treaty with the states-general, promising auxiliary troops for a subsidy.

Louis XIV, warned by these events, gave these princes the most solemn assurances of his intention to respect the Treaty of Westphalia as well as the imperial territory. But as these assurances had no effect, he finally declared that the continuation of their armed condition would be regarded as an act of hostility against his allies of Cologne and Münster, and he declined the responsibility of any war that might ensue.

Montecuculi [the imperial general] and the great elector united their forces, which with the German contingents amounted to 40,000 men. Louis XIV gave orders to Turenne to leave to Luxemburg the protection of the conquered towns in Holland, and to betake himself with 16,000 men to the lower Rhine, keeping the Germans from crossing, and to protect the territories of Cologne and Münster. Condé was charged with covering the upper Rhine and Alsace with an equal number of troops. The Germans’ plan was to march upon the Maas, to establish themselves there, and then to bring thither the prince of Orange and cut off in this manner communication between France and the French garrisons in Holland. But Turenne, stationed at Andernach, kept them a long time on the banks of the Rhine. They tried to cross higher up; Condé had destroyed the bridge at Strasburg, but after several weeks they succeeded (on November 23rd) in building a bridge of boats near Mainz. Turenne doubled on his track to cover the Maas. The Germans spread themselves over the electorate of Treves and the Palatinate; but this country being already ruined they could find no sustenance, and they recrossed the Rhine to live on the lands of Cologne and Münster. Turenne followed them.

Meanwhile Orange rallied a Spanish corps commanded by Marchin; he drove off Duras who was guarding the Maas with several French regiments, and conceived the bold idea of occupying Charleroi. He undertook the siege on the 15th of December, but he did not have sufficient material and had to retire before the arrival of Condé’s troops and the Flemish garrisons which Louis XIV ordered to Charleroi. [Notwithstanding the lack of troops, withheld through the jealousy of Louvois, these are said to have been Turenne’s most brilliant campaigns.]

By March, 1673, Turenne had driven the Germans across the Weser, and Frederick William, convinced of his powerlessness, and discontented with his allies, asked for peace. Louis XIV was eager to grant it, for he was in a hurry to dissolve the coalition, and simply imposed conditions that the elector should not assist Holland, or maintain troops beyond the Weser. Louis consented to withdraw his own troops from Frederick’s territory except from the towns in the duchy of Cleves, which he intended to hold until peace should be declared. This treaty was made definite the 6th of June, 1673, at Vossem, and Louis XIV almost at the same time signed two others with the duke of Hanover and the elector of Cologne, assuring defensive and offensive alliances on the part of France. Henceforth he regarded himself as delivered from all fear on the side of northern Germany.

Louis was not willing to submit to a mediation purposed by the emperor with arms in his hand. In the month of December, 1672, he accepted that which the Swedes offered. The mediation of Sweden was accepted by the other belligerents; it was agreed that a congress should be held at Cologne, but various delays postponed the first _pourparlers_ until June, 1673.

Louis XIV in agreeing to this congress had attached little importance to it and counted in reality upon war alone. For the campaign of 1673 he disposed of 800,000 men without counting the garrisons of Roussillon, Pinerolo, and Lorraine. In the month of June he sent Turenne into Hesse to watch the imperials who were reorganising their army. He gave Condé the command of the Dutch garrisons and placed Luxemburg under him. He himself went to besiege Maestricht with 45,000 of his best troops. He had no desire to declare war upon the Spaniards although Monterey had upheld the Dutch; nevertheless he traversed their territory and made a false demonstration upon Brussels in order to deceive them.