BOOK I. his life was liable to the most injurious and ma1091. lignant misrepresentations.

Retrospect of the Af

It has already been related, that the continenfairs of the tal war began on the part of France with a fu

Continent.

1689.

rious irruption into the empire, and the most horrid devastation of the provinces bordering upon the Rhine. The confederacy against France was such as had never been equalled in Europe. All the contiguous countries, Switzerland excepted, were engaged in it as principals; yet it was remarked, and it could not fail to excite admiration, that, though thus every way surrounded with enemies, she neither displayed any signs of despondency, nor made any unbecoming submissions. But, on the contrary, she prepared to exert her strength, spirit, and genius, in proportion to the difficulties and dangers that threatened her; and, single as she was, entered the lists against them all. But the honor she acquired by her magnanimity she sullied by her cruelties; and the smoking ruins of the cities of Spire, Worms, Manheim, Oppenheim, and Heidelberg, were the trophies of her detestable triumphs.

At the commencement of the campaign of 1689, the French were almost entire masters of the three ecclesiastical electorates; but the maréchal de Duras, who commanded their armies on the Rhine, found it extremely difficult to

accedes to

maintain his conquests. Early in the same year BOOK I. an offensive and defensive confederacy, which afterwards obtained the name of the Grand Alliance, from the number and rank of the princes England and potentates who acceded to it, was signed be- the Grand tween the emperor and the States General at Vi- Alliance. enna, to which the king of England was eagerly invited, and in a short time assented to become a party; though the treaty was not signed in form by the ambassadors of England till the 9th of December (1689). By the articles of this confederacy it was agreed that neither of the high contracting powers shall enter into a separate negotiation, and that no peace shall be concluded till the treaties of Westphalia and the Pyrenees shall be fully vindicated and restored. To this treaty were appended two secret articles; by the first of which England and Holland engaged to assist the emperor, in case of the death of the king of Spain without issue, to take possession of the Spanish monarchy with all its dependencies; and, by the second, to use their endeavours that the emperor's eldest son, the archduke Joseph, should be speedily elected king of the Romans,

The imperial court, in conjunction with the States General and the princes of the empire, brought three great armies into the field. At the head of the first, the duke of Lorraine, a general of the highest talents, invested the city of Mentz.

Mentz.

BOOK I. The grand battery against this place was opened 1689. with a general and tremendous discharge of cannon, bombs, &c. accompanied by a grand chorus of hautboys, trumpets, and kettle-drums. The garrison of it under the able conduct of M. Capture of D'Uxelles, governor of Mentz, made frequent fierce and desperate sallies; and the Germans, who considered themselves as the avengers of their bleeding country, repelled the several attacks with heroic courage. Every day the sun rose and set in blood, and every hour produced some new spectacle of horror*." After a gallant defence of two months, this formidable fortress surrendered on honorable terms of capitulation.

66

The elector of Brandenburg, receiving from the baron de Berensau the keys of Rheinberg, sat down before Keisarswart, which held out but a short time. He then attempted Bonne, a Successes of much more important place. Here his success

the Allies.

was doubtful, till the duke of Lorraine led part of his army, after the conquest of Mentz, to his assistance. Bonne then demanded to capitulate, after fifty-five days' blockade and twenty-six days' close siege.

This was the last campaign in which the great duke of Lorraine, as he is generally styled, appeared in the field. This prince died at Veltz, a village near Lintz, early in the succeeding

1689.

the Duke of

spring, about forty-eight years of age. Upon BOOK 1. his death-bed he wrote the following letter, expressive of the magnanimity of his character, to the emperor Leopold : "In compliance with Death of your sacred majesty's commands I set out from Lorraine. Inspruck to repair to Vienna, but I am stopped here by a more powerful master. I am going to give an account to him of a life which I have entirely devoted to your service. Remember that I leave behind me a wife who is nearly related to you, children who have no inheritance but my sword, and subjects who are in oppres

sion."

Walcourt.

In Flanders, the prince of Waldeck was opposed by the maréchal d'Humieres, at the head of a superior army Nothing memorable passed Battle of on this side, except that on the 15th of August (1689) an attempt was made by the French general to surprise the allies, then encamped near Walcourt, while a part of the army was engaged on a grand foraging excursion. The enemy were, however, repulsed by extraordinary efforts of activity and valor, with the loss of 2000 men. The English troops under the earl of Marlborough particularly distinguished themselves on this occasion; and the prince of Waldeck declared, that the English general had acquired in one day what others could gain only in years.

On the side of Catalonia, the duc de Noailles

1089.

Death of Pope Innocent XI.

BOOK I took the town and citadel of Campredon which was subsequently razed. But the chief advantage gained by the court of Versailles, in the course of this year, was in the demise of pope Innocent XI. of the family of Odeschalchi, who died August the 24, 1689, in the 13th year of his pontificate. He was of a character highly respectable; exemplary in his morals, without austerity, a zealous yet judicious patron of reform devout, yet free from superstition; disinterested, though economical; mild, yet determined. His ruling passion for several years was hatred to Louis XIV., by whom he had been treated with a rudeness and haughtiness as destitute of provocation as it was contrary to policy. He was succeeded by cardinal Ottoboni, a Venetian, alreadyfourscore years of age, who sat eighteen months Succeeded in the papal chair, under the name of Alexander VIII. der VIII. der VIII. Wearied with his vexatious and disgraceful dispute with the court of Rome, and superstitiously apprehensive of the efficacy of the papal censures, Louis notified to the new pope in a letter written with his own hand, the restitution of the city of Avignon, and his relinquish, ment of the pretensions he had hitherto maintained to the franchises. But the pope, though he complimented the king of France, in return for this concession, with the promotion of Fourbin and some other persons whom he recommended

by Alexan