their garrisons in February, 1701, dismissing the soldiers and keeping the fortresses.* This bold appropriation of the barrier† by the French, whilst it compelled the Dutch, as well as William, to recognise Philip as King of Spain, alarmed the British Parliament, and silenced the partisans of peace. The Commons besought the king to renew the triple alliance. And he did conclude a treaty with Denmark in July, stipulating military aid. The basis of a larger treaty was at the same time laid, which was to include the emperor and the Palatine. And this treaty itself was signed later, that is, in September, at Loo. It stipulated no less than that the allies were to conquer Flanders for Holland, Italy for the emperor, whilst the Dutch and English were to appropriate what they could of the Spanish Indies. When it is recollected that this most hostile treaty was actually signed on the 7th of September, and mooted long before, one may question the assumption that Louis, in recognising, about a fortnight after, the young Prince of Wales as King of England immediately upon his father's death, was actuated purely by sentimental motives. William the Third was the soul and centre of the warlike league now formed against French pretensions, and in challenging his right to the throne of England, Louis committed an act of retaliation rather than of provocation. Meantime the war actually broke forth in Italy, the chief prize for which the houses of Austria and Bourbon contended. The French had gained the alliance of the Duke of Savoy, the guardian of the Alps, by large sums and promises, and by the betrothal of his daughter to the new monarch of Spain. Catinat, so often opposed * Pelet. Mém. Militaires. †The Dutch recognised Philip as King of Spain to prevent the seizure of their goods and shipping in the ports of that country. William addressed Philip as king on his ac 2 cession to keep in accord with the war. Parliamentary Debates. XXXIII. XXXIII. CHAP. to the duke, and naturally mistrustful of him, was joined in the command, which thus became an essentially divided one. These generals, on behalf of the French, occupied not only the Milanese but the Venetian territory to the Adige. The emperor had the good fortune to find a commander more than equal to any that the French king could oppose to him. This was Prince Eugene of Savoy, to whom Louis had once denied, what he refused to no one, the purchase of a regiment, and who in consequence entered the service of Austria, and had recently won the famous battle of Zenta, over the Turks. Eugene, at the head of an overwhelming army, soon baffled the arrangements of the Duke of Savoy and Catinat for the defence of the Venetian territory, passed the Adige in their despite, and drove them behind the Adda. The French court, annoyed at the discomfiture, replaced Catinat by Villeroy, a vapouring commander, whom Madame de Maintenon protected. He sought to redeem the character of the army by attacking the Prince Eugene at Chiari, but he was defeated with the loss of several thousand men, and the supremacy of the Imperialists in the only field where they fought in 1701 was established. The French king made great efforts to meet in the field the formidable league of enemies which threatened him. He had replaced Pontchartrain in the administration of finance by Chamillard, whom Madame de Maintenon recommended, and of whom Louis himself augured well from the skill which he displayed at billiards. The new minister was recommended to the king and his mistress by his obsequiousness, whilst what was wanting was a minister as keen to perceive where lay deficiencies, as bold to speak them to the monarch. The capitation tax, so odious to the noblesse, had been re pealed, and in 1700, a year of peace, Chamillard had found a revenue of 69,000,000, to meet an expenditure of 116,000,000. He began by wringing 24,000,000 from the State money lenders. He taxed what he thought most flourishing in manufactures, the woollen and the linen fabrics, and put an extinguisher on both. The war then came upon the finance minister, who had recourse to an old operation, the debasement of the coin, an experiment which he repeated five times in the eight years of his administration. If the peace expenditure had been 116,000,000, that of war was double. It reached 220,000,000 in 1706, the last year of Chamillard's administration, by which time he had reduced the revenue to 75,000,000, the debt being above two milliards. To meet such demands, Chamillard taxed everything, and especially all articles of consumption. One example will suffice. The tax on wine was so great that it became useless to cultivate the grape, or to press it; a great number of vineyards being in consequence abandoned. Nevertheless, although the people were thus gradually exhausted, the king was enabled to keep large armies in the field. In the winter of 1701-2 were raised one hundred new regiments, amongst which, by the bye, were enrolled some thousands of forçats from Toulon.* This gave the opportunity of promoting no less than 150 new generals. Numbers, however, did not guarantee skill. Indeed the future fortunes of the belligerents might be marked by the names of the cominanders. When the dauphin was generalissimo in Flanders, and Villeroy in Italy, the leaders opposed to them were Marlborough and Prince Eugene. King William had been withdrawn from politics and life in March 1702. No better panegyric can be passed upon him than to point out how steadfastly and ably he had organised the prosecution of that war against France which he *Correspondence. State Papers, France, 318. CHAP. XXXIII. CHAP. found it so difficult and almost so impossible to begin. XXXIII. The transference of the crown of England to Anne in no wise disturbed the policy which William had traced out. By entrusting Marlborough with command, he had secured the allegiance of that fickle politician to the Protestant and constitutional interests, for in his allegiance was included that of the duchess. The Emperor was also full of zeal, and the allies published their declaration of war in the spring of 1702. Eugene opened the campaign by surprising and capturing Villeroy in Cremona. The marshal was replaced by the Duke of Vendome, a brave but reckless commander. As the campaign in Italy was considered the most important of military operations, Philip the Fifth of Spain hastened thither to animate it by his presence. This, however, led to a contrary result, the king choosing to mortify the Duke of Savoy in some stupid matter of etiquette. The Duke of Marlborough, at the same time, showed himself superior to those opposed to him in Flanders. He found the French in possession of Cleves, and under the walls of Nimeguen, from which advanced position he drove them back into Brabant. Marshal Boufflers, who commanded under the dauphin, succeeded, indeed, in baffling Marlborough's attempt to bring him to action. But the duke captured Venloo, Ruremonde, and finally the citadel and convent of Liege, a blow that was deeply felt by the French court.* A conviction now began to prevail with both belligerents that nothing decisive was to be achieved in the old and beaten fields of conquest. The English turned their efforts to an invasion of Spain through Portugal, the king of which country had joined their alliance. The French war office conceived a more gigantic scheme, that of the junction of the French army with the forces of the Elector of Bavaria, and the co-operation of the *Correspondence for Peace in State Papers, France, 318. XXXIII. Duke of Vendome in Lombardy with both, so as to CHAP. facilitate a march upon Vienna, and crush the emperor in his capital. The Hungarian insurrection then raging favoured this enterprise, for which, however, sufficient forces were wanting. Marshal Villars indeed advanced into Bavaria, and gained a victory over a portion of the Imperial army, under Count Styrum, upon the field of Hochstedt, destined in the ensuing year for a far more sanguinary and decisive battle. But the Bavarians could not reduce the strongholds of the Tyrol, nor would they effectually co-operate with Villars. The defection of the Duke of Savoy was, however, the most serious of the French misfortunes. He had naturally looked to profit by the break-up of the Spanish monarchy. But the French, scarcely able to hold their ground in Italy even with his aid, could give him small hopes of permanent aggrandisement, and Catinat had never ceased to complain of the duke's want of zeal. As the French began early to suspect an understanding between him and his relative, Prince Eugene, who commanded the Imperialists, they withdrew all confidence from him. Philip the Fifth came from Spain to protect in the field those interests for which his father-in-law, the Duke of Savoy, seemed little zealous. Louis demanded of the latter but half the number of troops stipulated. The mistrust was patent. The French, therefore, could have been little surprised at learning Savoy's open defection towards the close of 1703. Still it was most untoward, for the Huguenots of the Cevennes were in arms, defying an army of 20,000 soldiers under Montrevel to put them down, headed, as they were, by able leaders. The Duke of Savoy had but to give his hand to them by *The French declaration of war against Savoy states that Philip had come to Italy in 1702 from suspicion of the duke's steadfastness. Prince Eugene, in a letter of Sept. |