he

poured down upon the scattered positions of the imperialists in Alsace; defeated them at Turckheim (1675), and drove their army of seventy thousand men across the Rhine.

The emperor, dismayed by his continual reverses, sent against Turenne Montecuculli, the renowned victor of the Turks. The two able opponents displayed their skill in manœuvres, till Turenne, desirous of striking a decisive blow, in choosing ground for a battery, was shot through by a cannon ball, at Salzbach, in Baden (1675). He was buried with the kings of France, and with Dugescclin, at St. Denis. Montecuculli, immediately drove the French before him across the Rhine into Alsace; he followed them, and Condé taking the command against him, by occupying two positions only, compelled the Austrians to abandon the siege they had commenced, and to retreat beyond the Rhine. Condé, after this, retired to private life, at his residence of Chantilly, and died in 1686. The allies believed that the French armies had ceased to be invincible since Turenne and Condé were no longer at their head; but new defeats on land and sea came to deceive their hopes. Duquesne, who had been sent to the aid of Messina, which had rebelled against Spain, fought two naval battles with de Ruyter, off Sicily, in sight of mount Etna; the allies lost twelve ships, six galleys, seven thousand men, seven hundred pieces of cannon, and the famed de Ruyter himself. Duquesne destroyed their fleet in the roadstead of Palermo (1677). The Spaniards were defeated at the foot of the Pyrenees. In Flanders, the king pursued with success this war of sieges, the only one which he understood, because he could wage it in the midst of all his court. Condé, Bouchain, Aire, Valenciennes, Cambray, Ghent, and Ypres were taken from the enemy. Thus gloriously ended this war so unjustly engaged in. The states-general of Holland were wearied of a struggle which was only sustained by their subsidies, and sued for peace; it was time for France; Colbert wished to retire, if the war was not brought to a termination.

The Peace of Nimwegen.-The peace signed at Nimwegen was an honourable one for Holland, which recovered everything that had been taken from it during the war. But its allies were obliged to yield to the conditions of Louis XIV. France kept Franche-Comté, and twelve places of the Spanish Netherlands, Valenciennes, Bouchain, Condé, Cambray, Aire, Saint-Omer, Ypres, Maubeuge, &c.; in exchange for Philipsburg she had Friburg, which opened Germany to her; she caused to be restituted to Sweden what Denmark and Brandenburg had taken from it (1678). "Here may be seen," says Voltaire, "how little events correspond to projects. Holland, against which the war was undertaken, and which had nearly perished, lost nothing, nay, even gained a barrier; whilst the other powers, that had armed to defend and guarantee her independence, all lost something."

The peace itself was made a pretext for new aggressions; its language was interpreted at the discretion of France, and Strasburg was arbitrarily seized, without any justification. Louvois had long since coveted this important place; he suddenly invested it, and forced it to capitulate. The powers of Europe took the alarm, and entered into a fresh league. They were, however, paralysed in their efforts by anew and formidable invasion of three hundred thousand Turks, who persisted in the second siege of Vienna for two months (1683), and finally retreated before Sobieski king of Poland,

with the loss of seventy thousand men. The advance of the Mahometans confined the emperor to protests against the invasions of France. Spain alone engaged in actual war, and lost Courtray, Dixmude, and Luxemburg. A truce of twenty years was concluded at Ratisbone (1684). France profited by her aggressions. Thus, by a constant career of unscrupulous aggrandisement, Louis aroused the fears and embittered the animosity of all Christendom, and prepared for future years a heavy and merited retribution.

Literature and Arts under Louis XIV.-After long agitation, France, like Italy, had a great literary era. The human mind, after having acquired renewed vigour in the sources of antiquity, took a new flight. Whilst Bacon preached, in the sciences of observation, the experimental path that was to lead to so many discoveries, Descartes founded the absolute authority of reason over the ruins of all tradition. Never had the human mind more vigour or more daring than at the commencement of this century, in which genius ended in forging itself fresh fetters. Pascal, who, at twenty years of age, had already surprised the secrets of nature, succumbed, devoured by doubt, in the face of the difficult task which he had attempted to accomplish. Literature was inspired by the same bold and independent spirit. Its sources were in contemporary life, its sole faith was in itself. There was an entirely original school, which, commencing with Regnier, was continued by a chain of secondary poets, too much forgotten and insulted, until it reached its zenith with Corneille, Molière, and La Fontaine. In arts there was the same creative power, Lesueur, Poussin, Claude Lorraine, and Callot, have left master-pieces bearing the impress of all the spontaneousness of genius.

The majority of this generation of great men had lived far removed from the court. Mazarin had gone to Holland to seek out Descartes, in order to pension him. Neither Rotrou nor Poussin had dreamt of inquiring after the taste of the king or his courtiers. When Louis XIV. commenced to reign alone, the court became the arbiter of literary merit. The great king was too solicitous of his glory not to afford a signal patronage to literature and art. His largesses became the price of their independence. Literature was administered like the finances and the war department. It had to submit to absolute power. To the French academy, founded by Richelieu, were added other academies, to comprise every degree of merit. Colbert drew up a list of the French and foreign scientific and literary men honoured by the benefactions of his majesty. Genius, which had assumed the garb of the courtier, had become elegant and docile. Racine equalled the suavity of the Greeks. The great king held all the glories of his time around his pedestal, and intoxicated himself with this triumphal chorous of the century singing a hymn to royalty. The magnificence of Versailles had never been equalled. Louis XIV., amidst a court of great men, might believe himself superior to humanity. He did, in fact, sing his own apotheosis, composed by Quinault, to the music of Lulli. Thus Louis XIV., feared abroad, was absolute at home. It became not merely a fashion, but a passion, to testify devotion to the monarch and the monarchy. The parliaments were content to administer justice, the great nobles were detained at court by its splendid attractions and magnificence, the clergy was deprived of political influence, the smaller nobles served in the army, and all the power of the nation, great

and elastic as it is, was deposited in the person of the king himself. The whole of his administration was marked by features of grandeur. Louis XIV. was truly royal; he has been honoured with the name of Great, and the most distinguished names of France are those of the age of Louis XIV. Nevertheless, this brilliancy was transitory; even then appeared a little cloud, scarcely perceptible at first, which gradually spread and darkened, loured more and more, and after gathering for a full century, burst upon the soil of France with the fury and devastation of a tornado. The expenses of the wars and public works, the gigantic erections of the palace at Versailles, the personal prodigality of the monarch, had exhausted the treasury and all the legitimate resources of Colbert, who began to fall back upon loans, sales of office, and impolitic imposts; and by his death (1683), the council was deprived of his able co-operation. The public morals were deteriorated by the installation of successive mistresses, and in later years death made such inroads in the royal family, that the next successor to Louis XIV. was his great-grandson.

Maria Theresa died in 1683, and in 1685 Louis XIV. is supposed to have privately married Madame de Maintenon, the widow of Scarron, a buffoon author, and fifty years of age. In private she was treated, even by the royal family, as queen, and by her good sense and conversation, she amused the leisure of the king, while she was also always asked for an opinion on affairs of state. She survived till 1719, and is considered to have exercised a pernicious influence in the royal closet, even by her good qualities.

II. THE CLOSE OF THE REIGN OF LOUIS XIV.

Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.-The year which followed the peace of Nimwegen was devoted by the king to what he deemed religion, to which he gave himself up with the same excess that had marked his pursuit of pleasure. His confessor, La Chaise, obtained great influence over him, as did the chancellor Letellier and his son Louvois. Colbert had been a minister little in his way of thinking. He had leaned towards the Huguenots, whose superior industry, enlightenment, and aptitude for naval service won him. This minister had many of the protestants in employ, and he supported them in the good opinion of Louis. Louvois and Letallier, on the contrary, hated the reformers, and, as much from dislike to Colbert as from natural bent, leaned to the exclusive doctrines of intolerance. Colbert was now dead, and the monarch was left altogether under the influence of his bigoted councillors. The experience of Louis had shown him that every protestant noble or courtier had been induced, by his persuasion or command, to recant and be converted to catholicism. If interest therefore, or the monarch's will, brought unanimity in the religious opinions of the first class of the state, the most proud, the most powerful, the most enlightened, surely the same motives must have tenfold effect upon the mass of the ignoble. This reasoning was just pity, the example from which it was drawn, instead of being the rule of human nature, was but the base exception. Louis appointed emissaries and missionaries, charged with ample sums and promises of favour, to convert the Huguenots. They returned ample lists of converts. The mode, however, was found expensive. Severity was suggested by Louvois as a cheaper and more expeditious method. It was tried. The protestants were excluded from public employ, from divers communities. Their children were allowed to recant at seven years old, and were early enticed to do so, the penalties against relapse being severe. This was soon after the peace, and these first measures occasioned considerable emigration.

The emigration, especially of seamen and artisans, was soon felt to be prejudicial to the state. To check it, the pain of death was enacted against the attempting to emigrate, and all sales of property made by those who afterwards exiled themselves were declared void. The next step was to pull down the protestant churches. This was done at Montpellier. It was purposed, at the same time, to have public conferences and disputes with the protestant pastors, in order to convince them; but the governor wrote back to court that the catholic clergy were too ignorant, and quite unable to dispute or convert. They asked for a supply of dragoons, as more efficient; and these licentious soldiers, quartered on the protestants all through the south, devoured and plundered their substance, took away

their children to save them from being heretics, hunted the clergy like wild beasts, and destroyed all the churches. Upwards of seven hundred places of worship were overthrown before the revocation of the edict of Nantes. As Languedoc threatened to revolt under this oppression, fresh treaties and fresh edicts were poured upon them. The penal laws were precisely the same as those which were inflicted by the English protestants upon the Irish catholics. The British had but to copy the edicts of Louis XIV., merely abating their barbarity; and no doubt the spirit of retaliation dictated in a great degree their savage measures. A day was appointed for the conversion of all the protestants of such a district, the dragoons taking possession on that day. The refractory were hanged, and their chiefs broken on the wheel. St. Ruth was one of the leaders of these military expeditions, called the dragonnades.

At length, on the 22nd of October, 1685, appeared the ordinance styled the revocation of the edict of Nantes. It forbade all assemblies or exercise of the reformed religion; banished all their ecclesiastics from the kingdom in fifteen days; offered to such of them as would recant, their pensions, augmented by a third, which was to be continued to their wives; compelled the baptism of all infants in the catholic church; and condemned to the galleys all except the parties who should attempt to expatriate themselves. This, instead of being merely the revocation of an edict, was a new enactment of unheard-of severity; and, as usual, it induced amplifications still more severe. In 1686, a protestant pastor, French or foreign, was punished with death if taken. Men who assisted or harboured them were to be sent to the galleys, women, to be shaved and confined: 5,500 livres reward was set upon each of their heads. Death was the penalty for a protestant taken in an assembly or act of public worship. All these details are from catholic writers, justly touched with horror at their enormity. "Twenty of the religionists were put to death at this time," say the memoirs of Noailles. "The fugitives who assembled in the mountains were pursued. A premium was offered to each parish that could give up twelve; and three or four pistoles to each soldier that brought in one. Battues were made through the country by the troops, just in the manner of chasing wild beasts." Notwithstanding the penalties and the sanguinary prohibition, it is supposed that upwards of five hundred thousand French escaped across the frontiers. They were the most industrious part of the population, proved by the circumstance of their thriving in every land that received them, and enriching it as the price of their welcome. England received an immense number, principally silk manufacturers. The north of Germany profited by the same act of expatriation. The bigotry of Louis gave a greater blow to the industry and wealth of his kingdom than all the unlimited expenses of his pride or ambition. Together with the strength and sinews of her industrial population, France lost a host of brave soldiers, and men of science and letters. William of Orange more than once charged the French at the head of a regiment of Frenchmen; he was mainly indebted for the success of his Irish war to the old marshal Schomberg, who had preferred his faith to his country. Jurieu retired to Holland to dream of the approaching extermination of the catholic Babylon, whilst Bayle made Louis XIV. learn beforehand the severe judgment of posterity.