1689. condemned for contumacy. It is evident that BOOK L claims of this nature, enforced in this mode, must be productive of the bitterest animosity and contention. On the refusal of Spain and the empire to surrender several places in Brabant, Alsace, and Lorraine, thus imperiously demanded, Strasburg was seized, and Luxemburg besieged. The highest offence and the highest alarm were also excited in Holland and the protestant states of Germany, by the repeal of the famous edict of Nantz, and the furious persecution now commenced against the Huguenots in France. Leopold emperor of Germany, the only prince in Christendom whose power could with any prospect of success be set in opposition to that of France, was engaged in a dangerous war with the Ottoman Porte, assisted by the mal-contents of Hungary; insomuch, that in the course of it the Turkish moons had been displayed before the walls of Vienna. But, in consequence of the splendid and memorable victory obtained there over the infidels by the heroic Sobieski, the war, conducted with the highest military skill by the duke of Lorraine, took an unexpected and very favorable turn; and the court of Vienna was now much more at liberty to fix her attention upon the bold and aspiring projects of France. In order effectually to counteract those daring designs, League of Augsburg. a league had been formed in the year 1686 at BOOK I. Augsburg, to which the emperor, Spain, Holland, 1689. Savoy, and the principal states of the empire both catholic and protestant, were the contracting parties. The accession of England was eagerly looked for to this grand alliance, of which the emperor was the nominal, but the prince of Orange the real, head; from whose firmness and wisdom it derived all its weight and energy. It is singular, that even the pope himself, Innocent XI., greatly favored this confederacy against Louis, from whose haughtiness he had received the most mortifying personal affronts, and who had, by recent violence, wrested from him the city of Avignon. Perceiving a war inevitable, the king of France did not wait for the attack, but in the month of October 1688 caused a numerous army, commanded by the dauphin, and under him by the Marechal de Duras, to pass the Rhine, which took possession with very little opposition of Invasion of the cities of Philipsburg, Manheim, Mentz, by France, Spires, &c.; but he was wholly disappointed in his designs upon Cologne, which, rejecting the neutrality offered by France, admitted a garrison of 6000 men from prince Clement of Bavaria, recently chosen elector. The States General having nothing to apprehend therefore on that side, the prince of Orange was left at full liberty to prosecute his designs upon England. This sudden irruption was immediately followed by a mani festo against the emperor, and a declaration of BOOK L war against Holland, accompanied nearly at the 1089. same time with similar declarations against the other contracting parties of the league of Augs burg. And on the other hand, the states of the empire convened at Ratisbon passed unanimously a decree, pronouncing the crown of France with its adherents enemies of the holy Roman empire, for their manifold contraventions of the treaties of Munster, Nimeguen, &c.; and declaring the war now undertaken to be a common war of the empire against the common foe of Christendom. The ravages committed by the French armies in the circles of the Rhine, and particularly the Palatinate, were dreadful in the extreme, and excited throughout Europe the liveliest emotions of resentment and commiseration. Strong traces of their devastations are even yet discernible in many parts of that beautiful territory; and on this spot at least, the memory of Louis XIV. must be for ever held accursed.* * In speaking of the conduct of this dreadfully memorable campaign, M. Voltaire uses the following striking expressions: -"L'Europe en eut horreur. Les officiers qui l'exécutèrent étaitent honteux d'être les instrumens de ces duretés. On les rejettait sur le marquis de Louvois devenu plus inhumain par cet endurcissement de cœur que produit un long ministère. Il avait en effet donné ces conseils: mais Louis avait été le maître de ne les pas suivre. Si le roi avait été témoin de ce spectacle, il aurait lui-même éteint les flammes. Il signa, du fond de son BOOK I. In the month of March 1689, the king, by a 1689. message, informed both houses of parliament, that the late king had sailed from Brest with French palais de Versailles, et au milieu des plaisirs, la destruction de Histoire Generale, Vol. V. p. 204. and the nation; and the king in reply declared BOOK1 in warm terms his satisfaction at this address, 1689. and professed "that he looked upon the war to be already so much declared by France against England, that the step now taken was not so properly an act of choice as of inevitable necessity and self-defence." And on the 7th of May War de following, 1689, war was in form declared against England the French monarch. This was a measure which occasioned great joy to all the European courts confederated against France; and no less was looked for and expected from England. King William had on his accession to the British throne written to the States General, "that his new dignity, instead of diminishing the affection he ever had, or the care he ever took for the preservation and prosperity of their republic, would only serve to enable him to discharge his office of stadtholder with more weight and success towards the benefit and advantage of their state; and that during his reign he would make it his constant business and endeavour to establish and maintain a perfect intelligence, as also an inviolable friendship, between his kingdoms and the United Provinces, for the safety, welfare, and repose of both states, and support of the protestant religion." And throughout the whole course of his reign, agreeably to the tenor of this declaration, he exerted his utmost influence to clared by against France. |