Part 15

In every court in Europe Louis had his pensioners intriguing on his behalf. His newly created fleet was rapidly learning its work. On land he was served by the great engineer Vauban, by Turenne, Condé, and Condé's pupil, Luxembourg. He decided to direct his own next campaign against Franche-Comté. But during the year Turenne, who was conducting a separate campaign in Germany with extraordinary brilliancy, was killed; and after this year Condé took no further part in the war. Moreover, the Austrians were now in the field, under the able leader Montecuculi.

In 1676-8 town after town fell before Vauban, a master of siege work as of fortification; Louis, in many cases, being present in person. In other quarters, also, the French arms were successful. Especially noticeable were the maritime successes of Duquesne, who was proving himself a match for the Dutch commanders. Louis was practically fighting and beating half Europe single-handed, as he was now getting no effective help from England or his nominal ally, Sweden. Finally, in 1678, he was able practically to dictate his own terms to the allies. The peace had already been signed when William of Orange attacked Luxembourg before Mons; a victory, on the whole, for him, but entirely barren of results. With this peace of Nimeguen, Louis was at the height of his power.

By assuming the right of interpreting for himself the terms of the treaty, he employed the years of peace in extending his possessions. No other power could now compare with France, but in 1688 Louis stood alone, without any supporter, save James II. of England. And he intensified the general dread by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the expulsion of the French Huguenots.

The determination of James to make himself absolute, and to restore Romanism in England, caused leading Englishmen to enter on a conspiracy--kept secret with extraordinary success--with William of Orange. The luckless monarch was abandoned on every hand, and fled from his kingdom to France, an object of universal mockery. Yet Louis resolved to aid him. A French force accompanied him to Ireland, and Tourville defeated the united fleets of England and Holland. At last France was mistress of the seas; but James met with a complete overthrow at the Boyne. The defeated James, in his flight, hanged men who had taken part against him. The victorious William proclaimed a general pardon. Of two such men, it is easy to see which was certain to win.

Louis had already engaged himself in a fresh European war before William's landing in England. He still maintained his support of James. But his newly acquired sea power was severely shaken at La Hogue. On land, however, Louis' arms prospered. The Palatinate was laid waste in a fashion which roused the horror of Europe. Luxembourg in Flanders, and Catinat in Italy, won the foremost military reputations in Europe. On the other hand, William proved himself one of those generals who can extract more advantage from a defeat than his enemies from a victory, as Steinkirk and Neerwinden both exemplified. France, however, succeeded in maintaining a superiority over all her foes, but the strain before long made a peace necessary. She could not dictate terms as at Nimeguen. Nevertheless, the treaty of Ryswick, concluded in 1697, secured her substantial benefits.

III.---The Spanish Succession

The general pacification was brief. North Europe was soon aflame with the wars of those remarkable monarchs, Charles XII. and Peter the Great; and the rest of Europe over the Spanish succession. The mother and wife of Louis were each eldest daughters of a Spanish king; the mother and wife of the Emperor Leopold were their younger sisters. Austrian and French successions were both barred by renunciations; and the absorption of Spain by either power would upset utterly the balance of power in Europe. There was no one else with a plausible claim to succeed the childless and dying Charles II. European diplomacy effected treaties for partitioning the Spanish dominions; but ultimately Charles declared the grandson of Louis his heir. Louis, in defiance of treaties, accepted the legacy.

The whole weight of England was then thrown on to the side of the Austrian candidate by Louis' recognition of James Edward Stuart as rightful King of England. William, before he died, had successfully brought about a grand alliance of European powers against Louis; his death gave the conduct of the war to Marlborough. Anne was obliged to carry on her brother-in-law's policy. Elsewhere, kings make their subjects enter blindly on their own projects; in London the king must enter upon those of his subjects.

When Louis entered on the war of the Spanish Succession he had already, though unconsciously, lost that grasp of affairs which had distinguished him; while he still dictated the conduct of his ministers and his generals. The first commander who took the field against him was Prince Eugene of Savoy, a man born with those qualities which make a hero in war and a great man in peace. The able Catinat was superseded in Italy by Villeroi, whose failures, however, led to the substitution of Vendôme.

But the man who did more to injure the greatness of France than any other for centuries past was Marlborough--the general with the coolest head of his time; as a politician the equal, and as a soldier immeasurably the superior, of William III. Between Marlborough and his great colleague Eugene there was always complete harmony and complete understanding, whether they were campaigning or negotiating.

In the Low Countries, Marlborough gained ground steadily, without any great engagement. In Germany the French arms were successful, and at the end of 1703 a campaign was planned with Vienna for its objective. The advance was intercepted in 1704 by the junction of Eugene and the forces from Italy with Marlborough and an English force. The result was the tremendous overthrow of Hochstedt, or Blenheim. The French were driven over the Rhine.

Almost at the same moment English sailors surprised and captured the Rock of Gibraltar, which England still holds. In six weeks, too, the English mastered Valencia and Catalonia for the archduke, under the redoubtable Peterborough. Affairs went better in Italy (1705); but in Flanders, Villeroi was rash enough to challenge Marlborough at Ramillies in 1706. In half an hour the French army was completely routed, and lost 20,000 men; city after city opened its gates to the conqueror; Flanders was lost as far as Lille. Vendôme was summoned from Italy to replace Villeroi, whereupon Eugene attacked the French in their lines before Turin, and dispersed their army, which was forced to withdraw from Italy, leaving the Austrians masters there.

Louis seemed on the verge of ruin; but Spain was loyal to the Bourbon. In 1707 Berwick won for the French the signal victory of Almanza. In Germany, Villars made progress. Louis actually designed an invasion of Great Britain in the name of the Pretender, but the scheme collapsed. He succeeded in placing a great army in the field in Flanders; it was defeated by Marlborough and Eugene at Oudenarde. Eugene sat down before Lille, and took it. The lamentable plight of France was made worse by a cruel winter.

Louis found himself forced to sue for peace, but the terms of the allies were too intolerably humiliating. They demanded that Louis should assist in expelling his own grandson from Spain. "If I must make war, I would rather make it on my enemies than on my children," said Louis. Once more an army took the field with indomitable courage. A desperate battle was fought by Villars against Marlborough and Eugene at Malplaquet. Villars was defeated, but with as much honour to the French as to the allies.

Louis again sued for peace, but the allies would not relax their monstrous demands. Marlborough, Eugene, and the Dutch Heinsius all found their own interest in prolonging the war. But with the Bourbon cause apparently at its last gasp in Spain, the appearance there of Vendôme revived the spirit of resistance.

Then the death of the emperor, and the succession to his position of his brother, the Spanish claimant, the Archduke Charles, meant that the allies were fighting to make one dominion of the Spanish and German Empires. The steady advance of Marlborough in the Low Countries could not prevent a revulsion of popular sentiment, which brought about his recall and the practical withdrawal from the contest of England, where Bolingbroke and Oxford were now at the head of affairs. Under Villars, success returned to the French standards in Flanders.

Hence came in 1713 the peace of Utrecht, for the terms of which England was mainly responsible. It was fair and just, but the English ministry received scant justice for making it. The emperor refused at first to accept it; but, when isolated, he agreed to its corollary, the peace of Rastadt. Philip was secured on the throne of Spain.

Never was there a war or a peace in which so many natural expectations were so completely reversed in the outcome. What Louis may have proposed to himself after it was over, no one can say for he died the year after the treaty of Utrecht.

IV.--The Court of the Grand Monarque

The brilliancy and magnificence of the court, as well as the reign of Louis XIV., were such that the least details of his life seem interesting to posterity, just as they excited the curiosity of every court in Europe and of all his contemporaries. Such is the effect of a great reputation. We care more to know what passed in the cabinet and the court of an Augustus than for details of Attila's and Tamerlane's conquests.

One of the most curious affairs in this connection is the mystery of the Man with the Iron Mask, who was placed in the Ile Sainte-Marguerite just after Mazarin's death, was removed to the Bastille in 1690, and died in 1703. His identity has never been revealed. That he was a person of very great consideration is clear from the way in which he was treated; yet no such person disappeared from public life. Those who knew the secret carried it with them to their graves.

Once the man scratched a message on a silver plate, and flung it into the river. A fisherman who picked it up brought it to the governor. Asked if he had read the writing, he said, "No; he could not read himself, and no one else had seen it." "It is lucky for you that you cannot read," said the governor. And the man was detained till the truth of his statement had been confirmed.

The king surpassed the whole court in the majestic beauty of his countenance; the sound of his voice won the hearts which were awed by his presence; his gait, appropriate to his person and his rank, would have been absurd in anyone else. In those who spoke with him he inspired an embarrassment which secretly flattered an agreeable consciousness of his own superiority. That old officer who began to ask some favour of him, lost his nerve, stammered, broke down, and finally said: "Sire, I do not tremble thus in the presence of your enemies," had little difficulty in obtaining his request.

Nothing won for him the applause of Europe so much as his unexampled munificence. A number of foreign savants and scholars were the recipients of his distinguished bounty, in the form of presents or pensions; among Frenchmen who were similarly benefited were Racine, Quinault, Fléchier, Chapelain, Cotin, Lulli.

A series of ladies, from Mazarin's niece, Marie Mancini, to Mme. la Vallière and Mme. de Montespan, held sway over Louis' affections; but after the retirement of the last, Mme. de Maintenon, who had been her rival, became and remained supreme. The queen was dead; and Louis was privately married to her in January, 1686, she being then past fifty. Françoise d'Aubigné was born in 1635, of good family, but born and brought up in hard surroundings. She was married to Scarron in 1651; nine years later he died. Later, she was placed, in charge of the king's illegitimate children. She supplanted Mme. de Montespan, to whom she owed her promotion, in the king's favour. The correspondence in the years preceding the marriage is an invaluable record of that mixture of religion and gallantry, of dignity and weakness, to which the human heart is so often prone, in Louis; and in the lady, of a piety and an ambition which never came into conflict. She never used her power to advance her own belongings.

In August, 1715, Louis was attacked by a mortal malady. His heir was his great-grandson; the regency devolved on Orleans, the next prince of the blood. His powers were to be limited by Louis' will but the will could not override the rights which the Paris Parliament declared were attached to the regency. The king's courage did not fail him as death drew near.

"I thought," he said to Mme. de Maintenon, "that it was a harder thing to die." And to his servants: "Why do you weep? Did you think I was immortal?" The words he spoke while he embraced the child who was his heir are significant. "You are soon to be king of a great kingdom. Above all things, I would have you never forget your obligations to God. Remember that you owe to Him all that you are. Try to keep at peace with your neighbours. I have loved war too much. Do not imitate me in that, or in my excessive expenditure. Consider well in everything; try to be sure of what is best, and to follow that."

V.--How France Flourished Under Louis XIV.