as cardinals, yet refused to yield the point of the regale; nor would he grant the bulls, for the vacant French bishoprics, to those who had signed the formulary of 1682, declaring the pope fallible and subject to a general council: and at the approach of death he passed a bill expressly confirming all those of his predecessor.-The regale is a right claimed by the king of France to enjoy the revenues of the vacant sees till the oath of fidelity is taken and registered in the parliament of Paris. It includes, also, the power of nominating to the benefices and dignities in the gift of the bishop or archbishop, during the vacancy. The franchises were privileges of asylum, annexed not only to the houses of ambassadors at Rome, but even to the whole district where any ambassador chanced to live. This privilege was become a most terrible nuisance, inasmuch as it afforded protection to the most atrocious criminals, who filled the city with rapine and murder. Innocent XI. resolving to remove this evil, published a bull abolishing the franchises; and almost all the catholic powers of Europe acquiesced in what he had done, on being duly informed of the grievance. But Louis XIV., from a spirit of illimitable pride and insolence, refused to part with any thing that looked like a prerogative of his crown. He said, the king of France was not the imitator, but a pattern and example for other BOOK I. 1689. BOOK I. princes. He rejected with disdain the mild re1659. presentations of the pope. He sent the marquis de Lavardin as his ambassador to Rome, with a formidable train, to affront Innocent even in his own city. That nobleman executed his commission with every circumstance of insult. He entered Rome in a hostile manner, with several troops of horse, which kept guard in the franchises, and set the papal authority at defiance. The pope in revenge excommunicated Lavardin ; and concurred with the allies in all their projects for the reduction of the power of France, refusing to confirm the election of a coadjutor to Cologne, and defeating the views of France in favor of cardinal Furstenberg upon Liege; by which means a great facility was given to the prince of Orange's expedition to England.-Alexander VIII. was Accession succeeded by cardinal Pignatelli, who took the XII. name of Innocent XII. in respect to the memory of Odeschalchi, to whom he owed his promotion, of Innocent whose principles and policy it was his ambition to adopt, and of whose maxims and conduct he had been a long and attentive observer. 1690. In the summer of 1690, the duke of Savoy, Invasion of after long hesitation, openly declared himself in the French. favor of the allies, and became a party to the gene Savoy by ral confederacy. His dominions were immediately invaded by a French army under M. de Catinat, a commander of consummate skill, who, August BOOK I. 1090. Saluzzo. the 3d, totally defeated the troops of Savoy at Saluzzo,* and passing the mountains he reduced the greater part of that duchy with the important fortress of Suza. The duke, who was a man of Battle of ability and address, finding himself deserted by Spain and the emperor, notwithstanding their lavish promises of support, now applied himself, in a most respectful, or, more properly speaking, adulatory manner, to the king of England, through the medium of his chief minister and ambassador extraordinary, the count de la Tour. "His royal highness, my master," said the count, at his first public audience of the king, 'does, by me, congratulate your sacred majesty's glorious accession to the crown. It was due to your birth, was deserved by your virtue, and is maintained by your valor. Providence had designed it for your sacred head, for the accomplishment of its eternal decrees, which, after long patience, do always tend to raise up chosen souls to repress violence and protect justice. The wonderful beginnings of your reign are most certain presages of the blessings which heaven prepares for the uprightness of your intentions, which have no other scope than to restore this flourishing kingdom to its first greatness, and break the chains which Europe * This battle was fought in sight of the town of Saluzzo, or Saluces, near the abbey of Staffarda, from which in the French accounts it derives its name. BOOK I groans under. 1690. ments of his royal highness; to which I dare not add any thing of mine: for, how ardent soever my zeal may be, and however profound the veneration which I bear to your glorious achievements, I think I cannot better express either, than by a silence full of admiration." Gratified, probably, by these high and flattering compliments, and certainly incited by the most forcible and obvious motives of policy, the king received the ambassador of Savoy very graciously, and gave him the strongest assurances of effectual support and protection. These are the sincere senti Fleurus. During this campaign the prince of Waldeck was opposed in Flanders by the maréchal duc de Battle of Luxemburg: and in June 1690 a general engagement took place at Fleurus, in which Luxemburg, by a display of great military talents, obtained the advantage-the confederate army being compelled to retreat with the loss of 7 or 8C00 men. The cavalry of the allies in this engagement behaved ill, and, having been once discomfited, could never be brought to rally; but the infantry did wonders, and, deserted as they were, resisted all attacks, and at length quitted the field in such admirable order, that the duke of Luxemburg in rapture exclaimed, "that they surpassed the Spanish foot at the battle of Rocroy. The prince of Waldeck," said he, "ought ever to remember the French horse; and I shall never forget the Dutch infantry.” Joseph Early in the present year (1690) the archduke BOOK I. Joseph had been unanimously elected king of the 1690. Romans, in conformity to the eager wishes of the emperor. The duke of Lorraine being now Archduke no more, the command of the imperial army on elected King of the the Rhine was conferred on the elector of Bava- Romans. ria; and the French were conducted by the dauphin: but the campaign on this side was merely and mutually defensive, and its operations too unimportant to relate. An inroad was a second time made by M. de Noailles into Catalonia; but at the approach of the winter he abandoned his conquests, and retired to Rousillon. Mons by Before the king of England had taken the field, in the spring of 1691, and even while the 1691. congress was still sitting at the Hague, the French suddenly invested the city of Mons, which the Capture of prince of Waldeck attempted in vain to relieve. the French. And the Maréchal de Luxemburg was on his march to surprise Brussels, when the king of England put himself at the head of the allied army, by this time confessedly superior to that of the enemy, and effectually covered Brussels from attack; after which he sent a detachment to the relief of Liege, threatened by maréchal Boufflers. The king, now passing the Sambre, tried all possible means to bring the enemy to a battle, exhausting his invention in marches, coun |