Part 2 — Chapter III. (These four articles abrogated by the four articles following them, 118-122.) Article 118. The Federal Constitution may at any time be amended. (continued 47)

{1232}

1. On the Northern frontier Spain ceded all she had in Artois, with exception of Aire and S. Omer; in Flanders itself France got Gravelines and its outer defences. In Hainault she became mistress of the important towns, Landrecies, Quesnoy, and Avesnes, and also strengthened her position by some exchanges: in Luxemburg she retained Thionville, Montmédy, and several lesser places; so that over her whole northern border France advanced her frontier along a line answering to her old limits. … In return she restored to Spain several of her latest conquests in Flanders: Ypres, Oudenarde, Dixmüden, Furnes, and other cities. In Condé's country France recovered Rocroy, Le Câtelet and Linchamp, occupied by the Prince's soldiers; and so secured the safety and defences of Champagne and Paris.

2. More to the East, the Duke of Lorraine, having submitted with such good grace as might be, was reinstated in his Duchy. … But France received her price here also, the Duchy of Bar, the County of Clermont on the edge of Champagne, Stenay, Dun, Jametz, Moyenvic, became hers. The fortifications of Nancy were to be rased for ever; the Duke of Lorraine bound himself to peace, and agreed to give France free passage to the Bishopricks and Alsace. This was the more necessary, because Franche-Comté, the other highway into Alsace, was left to the Spaniards, and such places in it as were in the King's hands were restored to them. Far out in Germany Louis XIV. replaced Jülich in the hands of the Duke of Neuberg; and that element of controversy, the germ or pretext of these long wars, was extinct for ever. On the Savoyard border France retained Pinerolo, with all the means and temptations of offence which it involved: she restored to the Duke her other conquests within his territories, and to the Spaniards whatever she held in Lombardy; she also honourably obtained an amnesty for those subjects of Spain, Neapolitans or Catalans, who had sided with France. Lastly, the Pyrenees became the final, as it was the natural, boundary between the two Latin kingdoms. … Roussillon and Conflans became French: all French conquests to the south of the Pyrenees were restored to Spain. The Spanish King renounced all claims on Alsace or Breisach: on the other hand the submission of the great Condé was accepted; he was restored to all his domains; his son, the young Duke of Enghien, being made Grand Master of France, and he himself appointed Governor of Burgundy and Bresse: his friends and followers were included in the amnesty. Some lesser stipulations, with a view to the peace of Europe, for the settlement of the differences between Spain and Portugal, between the Dukes of Savoy and Mantua, between the Catholic and the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland, and an agreement to help forward peace between the Northern Courts, worthily close this great document, this weighty appendix to the Treaties of Westphalia. A separate act, as was fitting, regulated all questions bearing on the great marriage. It contains a solemn renunciation, intended to bar for ever the union of the two Crowns under one sceptre, or the absorption into France of Flanders, Burgundy, or Charolais. It was a renunciation which, as Mazarin foresaw long before, would never hold firm against the temptations and exigencies of time. The King's marriage with the Infanta Maria Theresa of Spain did not take place till the next year, by which time Mazarin's work in life seemed well nigh over; racked with gout, he had little enjoyment of his triumphs. … He betook himself to the arrangement of his own affairs: his physicians giving him, early in 1661, no hopes of recovery. … These things arranged, the Cardinal resigned himself to die 'with a serenity more philosophic than Christian'; and passed away on the 8th of March, 1661."

G. W. Kitchin, History of France, book 4, chapter 8 (volume 3).

"The Treaty of the Pyrenees, which completed the great work of pacification that had commenced at Munster, is justly celebrated as having put an end to such bitter and useless animosities. But, it is more famous, as having introduced a new æra in European politics. In its provisions all the leading events of a century to come had their origin—the wars which terminated with the Treaties of Aix-la-Chapelle, Nimeguen, and Ryswick, and that concerning the Spanish succession. So great an epoch in history has the Pyrenean Treaty been accounted by politicians, that Lord Bolingbroke was of opinion, 'That the only part of history necessary to be thoroughly studied, goes no farther back than this treaty, since, from that period, a new set of motives and principles have prevailed all over Europe.'"

J. Dunlop, Memoirs of Spain during the Reigns of Philip IV. and Charles II., volume 1. chapter 11.

FRANCE: A. D. 1660-1688. A footing gained in Newfoundland.

See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1660-1688.

FRANCE: A. D. 1661. Personal assumption of the government by Louis XIV. The extraordinary characteristics of the reign of the Grand Monarch, now begun.

On the death of Mazarin Louis XIV., then twenty-three years old, announced to his council his intention of taking the government solely upon himself. His ministers were henceforward to receive instructions from him in person; there was to be no premier at their head. The reign which then began "was the culminating epoch in the history of the French Monarchy. What the age of Pericles was in the history of the Athenian Democracy, what the age of the Scipios was in the history of the Roman Republic, that was the reign of Louis XIV. in the history of the old Monarchy of France. … It is not only the most conspicuous reign in the history of France—it is the most conspicuous reign in the history of Monarchy in general. Of the very many kings whom history mentions, who have striven to exalt the monarchical principle, none of them achieved a success remotely comparable to his. … They may have ruled over wider dominions, but they never attained the exceptional position of power and prestige which he enjoyed for more than half a century. They never were obeyed so submissively at home, nor so dreaded, and even respected, abroad. For Louis XIV. carried off that last reward of complete success, that he for a time silenced even envy, and turned it into admiration. We who can examine with cold scrutiny the make and composition of this Colossus of a French Monarchy; who can perceive how much the brass and clay in it exceeded the gold; who know how it afterwards fell with a resounding ruin, the last echoes of which have scarcely died away, have difficulty in realising the fascination it exercised upon contemporaries who witnessed its first setting up. Louis XIV.'s reign was the very triumph of commonplace greatness, of external magnificence and success, such as the vulgar among mankind can best and most sincerely appreciate. … His qualities were on the surface, visible and comprehensible to all. … {1233} He was indefatigably industrious: worked on an average eight hours a day for fifty-four years; had, great tenacity of will; that kind of solid judgment which comes of slowness of brain, and withal a most majestic port and great dignity of manners. He had also as much kindliness of nature as the very great can be expected to have. … He must have had great original fineness of tact, though it was in the end nearly extinguished by adulation and incense. His court was an extraordinary creation, and the greatest thing he achieved. He made it the microcosm of all that was most brilliant and prominent in France. Every order of merit was invited there, and received courteous welcome. To no circumstance did he so much owe his enduring popularity. By its means he impressed into his service that galaxy of great writers, the first and the last classic authors of France, whose calm and serene lustre will for ever illumine the epoch of his existence. It may even be admitted that his share in that lustre was not so accidental and undeserved as certain king-haters have supposed. That subtle critic, M. Ste. Beuve, thinks he can trace a marked rise even in Bossuet's style from the moment he became a courtier of Louis XIV. The king brought men together, placed them in a position where they were induced and urged to bring their talents to a focus. His Court was alternately a high-bred gala and a stately university. … But Louis XIV.'s reign has better titles than the adulations of courtiers and the eulogies of wits and poets to the attention of posterity. It marks one of the most memorable epochs in the annals of mankind. It stretches across history like a great mountain-range, separating ancient France from the France of modern times. On the farther slope are Catholicism and feudalism in their various stages of splendour and decay—the France of crusade and chivalry, of St. Louis and Bayard. On the hither side are free-thought, industry, and centralization—the France of Voltaire, Turgot and Condorcet. When Louis came to the throne, the Thirty Years' War still wanted six years of its end, and the heat of theological strife was at its intensest glow. When he died, the religious temperature had cooled nearly to freezing-point, and a new vegetation of science and positive inquiry was overspreading the world. This amounts to saying that his reign covers the greatest epoch of mental transition through which the human mind has hitherto passed, excepting the transition we are witnessing in the day which now is. We need but recall the names of the writers and thinkers who arose during Louis XIV.'s reign, and shed their seminal ideas broadcast upon the air, to realise how full a period it was, both of birth and decay; of the passing away of the old and the uprising of the new forms of thought. To mention only the greatest;—the following are among the chiefs who helped to transform the mental fabric of Europe in the age of Louis XIV.:—Descartes, Newton, Leibnitz, Locke, Boyle. … But the chief interest which the reign of Louis XIV. offers to the student of history has yet to be mentioned. It was the great turning-point in the history of the French people. The triumph, of the Monarchical principle was so complete under him, independence and self-reliance were so effectually crushed, both in localities and individuals, that a permanent bent was given to the national mind—a habit of looking to the Government for all action and initiative permanently established. Before the reign of Louis XIV. it was a question which might fairly be considered undecided, whether the country would be able or not, willing or not, to co-operate with its rulers in the work of the Government and the reform of abuses. On more than one occasion such co-operation did not seem entirely impossible or improbable. … After the reign of Louis' XIV. such co-operation of the ruler and the ruled became impossible. The Government of France had become a machine depending upon the action of a single spring. Spontaneity in the population at large was extinct, and whatever there was to do must be done by the central authority. As long as the Government could correct abuses it was well; if it ceased to be equal to this task they must go uncorrected. When at last the reform of secular and gigantic abuses presented itself with imperious urgency, the alternative before the Monarchy was either to carry the reform with a high hand, or perish in the failure to do so. We know how signal the failure was, and could not help being, under the circumstances; and through having placed the Monarchy between these alternatives, it is no paradox to say that Louis XIV. was one of the most direct ancestors of the Great Revolution."

J. C. Morison, The Reign of Louis XIV. (Fortnightly Review, March, 1874).

ALSO IN: J. I. von Döllinger, The Policy of Louis XIV. (Studies in European History, chapter 11).

FRANCE: A. D. 1661-1680. Revived and growing persecution of the Huguenots.

"One of the King's first acts, on assuming the supreme control of affairs at the death of Mazarin, was significant, of his future policy with regard to the Huguenots. Among the representatives of the various public bodies who came to tender him their congratulations, there appeared a deputation of Protestant ministers, headed by their president Vignole; but the King refused to receive them, and directed that they should be ordered to leave Paris forthwith. Louis was not slow to follow up this intimation by measures of a more positive kind, for he had been carefully taught to hate Protestantism; and, now that he possessed unrestrained power, he flattered himself with the idea of compelling the Huguenots to abandon their convictions and adopt his own. His minister Louvois wrote to the governors throughout the provinces that 'his majesty will not suffer any person in his kingdom but those who are of his religion.' … A series of edicts was accordingly published with the object of carrying the King's purposes into effect. The conferences of the Protestants were declared to be suppressed. Though worship was still permitted in their churches, the singing of psalms in private dwellings was declared to be forbidden. … Protestant children were invited to declare themselves against the religion of their parents. Boys of fourteen and girls of twelve years old might, on embracing Roman Catholicism, become enfranchised and entirely free from parental control. … The Huguenots were again debarred from holding public offices, though a few, such as Marshal Turenne and Admiral Duquesne, who were Protestants, broke through this barrier by the splendor of their services to the state. In some provinces, the exclusion was so severe that a profession of the Roman Catholic faith was required from simple artisans. … {1234} Colbert, while, he lived, endeavored to restrain the King, and to abate these intolerable persecutions. … He took the opportunity of cautioning the King lest the measures he was enforcing might tend, if carried out, to the impoverishment of France and the aggrandizement of her rivals. … But all Colbert's expostulations were in vain; the Jesuits were stronger than he was, and the King was in their hands; besides, Colbert's power was on the decline. … In 1666 the queen-mother died, leaving to her son, as her last bequest, that he should suppress and exterminate heresy within his dominions. … The Bishop of Meaux exhorted him to press on in the path his sainted mother had pointed out to him. … The Huguenots had already taken alarm at the renewal of the persecution, and such of them as could readily dispose of their property and goods were beginning to leave the kingdom in considerable numbers for the purpose of establishing themselves in foreign countries. To prevent this, the King issued an edict forbidding French subjects from proceeding abroad without express permission, under penalty of confiscation of their goods and property. This was followed by a succession of severe measures for the conversion or extirpation of such of the Protestants—in numbers about a million and a half—as had not by this time contrived to make their escape from the kingdom. The kidnapping of Protestant children was actively set on foot by the agents of the Roman Catholic priests, and their parents were subjected to heavy penalties if they ventured to complain. Orders were issued to pull down the Protestant places of worship, and as many as eighty were shortly destroyed in one diocese. … Protestants were forbidden to print books without the authority of magistrates of the Romish communion. Protestant teachers were interdicted from teaching children any thing more than reading, writing, and arithmetic. … Protestants were only allowed to bury their dead at daybreak or at nightfall. They were prohibited from singing psalms on land or on water, in workshops or in dwellings. If a priestly procession passed one of their churches while the psalms were being sung, they must stop instantly on pain of the fine or imprisonment of the officiating minister. In short, from the pettiest annoyance to the most exasperating cruelty, nothing was wanting on the part of the 'Most Christian King' and his abettors."

S. Smiles, The Huguenots, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: A. Maury, Memoirs of a Huguenot Family (Fontaine), chapters 4-7.

W. S. Browning, History of the Huguenots, chapters 59-60.

FRANCE: A. D. 1661-1683. The administration of Colbert. His economic system and its results.

"With Colbert the spirit of the great Cardinal came back to power. Born at Reims on the 29th of August, 1619, Colbert was educated by the Jesuits, and at the early age of nineteen entered the War Office, in which department Le Tellier, a connection of his family by marriage, filled the post of Under-Secretary of State. From the first Colbert distinguished himself by his abnormal powers of work, by his extraordinary zeal in the public service, and by an equal devotion to his own interests. His Jesuit training showed fruit in his dealings with all those who, like Le Tellier or Mazarin, could be of use to him on his road to power, whilst the old tradition of his Scotch blood is favoured by a certain 'dourness' of character which rendered him in general difficult of access. His marvellous strength of brain, seconded by rare powers of endurance, enabled him to work habitually fourteen hours a day to enter into every detail of every branch of the administration, whilst at the same time he never lost sight of that noble project of universal reform which he had conceived, and which embraced both Church and State. … Qualified in every way for the work of administration, absolutely indifferent to popularity, Colbert seemed destined by nature to lead the final charge against the surviving forces of the feudal system. After the troubles of the Fronde had died away and the death of Mazarin had left Louis XIV. a king in deed as well as in name, these forces of the past were personified by Fouquet, and the duel between Fouquet and Colbert was the dramatic close of a struggle predestined to end in the complete triumph of absolutism. The magnificent and brilliant Fouquet, who for years past had taken advantage of his position as 'Surintendant des Finances' to lavish the resources of the State on his private pleasures, was plainly marked out as the object of Colbert's hostility. … On the losing side were ranged all the spendthrift princes and facile beauties of the Court, all the greedy recipients of Fouquet's ostentatious bounties. He had reckoned that the greatest names in France would be compromised by his fall, and that by their danger his own safety was assured. He had reckoned without Colbert; he had reckoned without that power which had been steadily growing throughout all vicissitudes of fate during the last two generations, and which was now centred in the King. No stranger turn of fortune can be pictured than that which, on the threshold of the modern era, linked the nobles of France in their last struggle for independence with the fortunes of a rapacious and fraudulent financier, nor can anything be more suggestive of the character of the coming epoch than the sight of this last battle fought, not in the field of arms, but before a court of law. To Colbert, the fall of Fouquet was but the necessary preliminary to that reform of every branch of the administration which had been ripening in his mind ever since he had entered the public service. To bring the financial situation into order, it was necessary first to call Fouquet to account. … The fall of the chief offender, Fouquet, having been brought about, it was easy to force all those who had been guilty of similar malversations on a minor scale to run the gauntlet of the High Commission. Restitution and confiscation became the order of the day, and when the Chamber of Justice was finally dissolved in 1669, far beyond any advantage which might be reckoned to the Treasury from these sources was the gain to the nation in the general sense of security and confidence. It was felt that the days of wholesale dishonesty and embezzlement were at an end. … Colbert went forward from this moment without hesitation, devoting his whole energies to the gigantic task of re-shaping the whole internal economy of France. … Backed by despotic power, his achievements in these directions have to an incredible extent determined the destinies of modern industry, and have given origin to the whole system of modern administration, not only in France, but throughout Europe. {1235} In the teeth of a lavish expenditure which he was utterly unable to check, once and again did Colbert succeed in establishing a financial equilibrium when the fortunes of France seemed desperate. … He aimed … at the fostering of home production by an elaborate system of protection, whilst at the same time the markets of other countries were to be forced open and flooded with French goods. Any attempt on the part of a weaker power to imitate his own policy, such for instance as that made in the papal states by Alexander VII. and Clement IX., was instantly repressed with a high hand. … His leading idea was to lower all export dues on national produce and manufactures, and, whilst diminishing import duties on such raw materials as were required for French manufactures, to raise them until they became prohibitive on all foreign goods.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION: A. D. 1664-1667 (FRANCE).

The success of the tariff of 1664 misled Colbert. That tariff was a splendidly statesmanlike attempt to put an end to the conflict and confusion of the duties, dues, and customs then existing in the different provinces and ports of France, and it was in effect a tariff calculated for purely fiscal purposes. Far other were the considerations embodied in the tariff of 1667, which led to the Dutch and English wars, and which, having been enacted in the supposed interests of home industry, eventually stimulated production in other countries. … If, however, the industrial policy of Colbert cannot be said to have realised his expectations, since it neither brought about a great increase in the number of home manufactures nor succeeded in securing a larger share of foreign trade, there is not a doubt that, in spite even of the disastrous wars which it provoked, it powerfully contributed, on the whole, to place France in the front rank as a commercial nation. … The pitiless and despotic Louvois, who had succeeded his father, Colbert's old patron Le Tellier, as Secretary of State for War, played on the imperious vanity of King Louis, and engaged him in wars big and little, which in most cases wanted even the shade of a pretext. … All the zeal of the great Minister's strict economy could only stay for a while the sure approach of national distress. … When Colbert died, on 6th September, 1683, the misery of France, exhausted by oppressive taxation, and depopulated by armies kept constantly on foot, cried out against the Minister who, rather than fall from power, had lent himself to measures which he heartily condemned. For the moment men forgot how numerous were the benefits which he had conferred … and remembered only the harshness with which he had dealt justice and stinted mercy. Yet order reigned where, before his advent, all had been corruption and confusion; the navy of France had been created, her colonies fostered, her forests saved from destruction; justice and the authority of the law had been carried into the darkest corners of the land; religious toleration, socially if not politically, had been advocated; whilst the encroachments of the Church had been more or less steadfastly opposed. To the material prosperity of the nation—even after we have made all possible deductions for the evils arising from an exaggerated system of protection—an immense and enduring impulse had been given; and although it is true that, with the death of Colbert, many parts of his splendid scheme fell to the ground, yet it must be confessed that the spirit in which it was originated and improved still animates France."

Lady Dilke, France under Colbert (Fortnightly Rev., February, 1886).

ALSO IN: H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV., volume 1, chapters 1-7.

See, also, TAILLE AND GABELLE.

FRANCE: A. D. 1662. The purchase of Dunkirk from Charles II.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1662.

FRANCE: A. D. 1663-1674. New France made a Royal Province. The French West India Company.

See CANADA: A. D. 1663-1674.

FRANCE: A. D. 1664. Aid given to Austria against the Turks. The victory of St. Gothard.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1660-1664.

FRANCE: A. D. 1664-1666. War with the piratical Barbary States. The Jijeli expedition. Treaties with Tunis and Algiers.

See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1664-1684.

FRANCE: A. D. 1664-1690. The building of Versailles.

See VERSAILLES.

FRANCE: A. D. 1665. The Great Days of Auvergne.

"We must read the curious account of the Great Days of Auvergne, written by Fléchier in his youth, if we would form an idea of the barbarism in which certain provinces of France were still plunged, in the midst of the brilliant civilization of the 17th century, and would know how a large number of those seigniors, who showed themselves so gallant and tender in the boudoirs of Paris, lived on their estates, in the midst of their subjects: we might imagine ourselves in the midst of feudalism. A moment bewildered by the hammer of the great demolisher [Richelieu], which had battered down so many Chateaux, the mountain squires of Auvergne, Limousin, Marche and Forez had resumed their habits under the feeble government of Mazarin. Protected by their remoteness from Paris and the parliament, and by the nature of the country they inhabited, they intimidated or gained over the subaltern judges, and committed with impunity every species of violence and exaction. A single feature will enable us to comprehend the state of these provinces. There were still, in the remoter parts of Auvergne, seigniors who claimed to use the wedding right (droit de jambage), or, at the least, to sell exemption from this right at a high price to bridegrooms. Serfhood of the glebe still existed in some districts. August 31, 1665, a royal declaration, for which ample and noble reasons were given, ordered the holding of a jurisdiction or court 'commonly called the Great Days,' in the city of Clermont, for Auvergne, Bourbonnais, Nivernais, Forez, Beaujolais, Lyonnais, Combrailles, Marche, and Berry. A president of parliament, a master of requests, sixteen councillors, an attorney-general, and a deputy procurator-general, were designated to hold these extraordinary assizes. Their powers were almost absolute. They were to judge without appeal all civil and criminal cases, to punish the 'abuses and delinquencies of officers of the said districts,' to reform bad usages, as well in the style of procedure as in the preparation and expedition of trials, and to try all criminal cases first. It was enjoined on bailiffs, seneschals, their lieutenants and all other judges, to give constant information of all kinds of crimes, in order to prepare matter for the Great Days. A second declaration ordered that a posse should be put into the houses of the contumacious, that the chateaux where the least resistance was made to the law should be razed; and forbade, under penalty of death, the contumacious to be received or assisted. {1236} The publication of the royal edicts, and the prompt arrival of Messieurs of the Great Days at Clermont, produced an extraordinary commotion in all those regions. The people welcomed the Parisian magistrates as liberators, and a remarkable monument of their joy has been preserved, the popular song or Christmas hymn of the Great Days. Terror, on the contrary, hovered over the châteaux; a multitude of noblemen left the province, and France, or concealed themselves in the mountains; others endeavored to conciliate their peasants. … The Great Days at least did with vigor what it was their mission to do: neither dignities, nor titles, nor high connections preserved the guilty. … The Court of Great Days was not content with punishing evil; it undertook to prevent its return by wise regulations: first, against the abuses of seigniorial courts; second, against the vexations of seigniors on account of feudal service due them; third, concerning the mode and abbreviation of trials; and lastly, concerning the reformation of the clergy, who had no less need of being reformed than the nobility. The Great Days were brought to a close after three months of assizes (end of October, 1665—end of January, 1666), and their recollection was consecrated by a medal."

H. Martin, History of France: The Age of Louis XIV:, volume 1, chapter 2.

FRANCE: A. D.1665-1670. The East India Company.

See INDIA: A. D. 1665-1743.

FRANCE: A. D. 1666. Alliance with Holland against England.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1665-1666.

FRANCE: A. D. 1667. The War of the Queen's Rights. Conquests in the Spanish Netherlands.

See NETHERLANDS (SPANISH PROVINCES): A. D. 1667.

FRANCE: A. D. 1668. The king's conquests in Flanders checked by the Triple Alliance.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1668.

FRANCE: A. D. 1670. The secret treaty of Dover. The buying of the English king.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1668-1670.

FRANCE: A. D. 1672-1678. War with Holland and the Austro-Spanish Coalition.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1672-1714; and NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1672-1674, and 1674-1678.

FRANCE: A. D. 1673-1682. Discovery and exploration of the Mississippi by Marquette and La Salle. Possession taken of Louisiana.

See CANADA: A. D. 1634-1673, and 1669-1687.

FRANCE: A. D. 1678-1679. The Peace of Nimeguen.

See NIMEGUEN. PEACE OF.

FRANCE: A. D. 1679-1681. Complete absorption of Les Trois-Evêchés and Alsace. Assumption of entire sovereignty by Louis XIV. Encroachments of the Chambers of Reannexation. The seizure of Strasburg.

"The Lorraine Trois-Evêchés, recovered by France from the Holy Roman Empire, had remained in an equivocal position, as to public law, during nearly a century, between their old and new ties: the treaty of Westphalia had cut the knot by the formal renunciation of the Empire to all rights over these countries; difficulties nevertheless still subsisted relative to the fiefs and the pendencies of Trois-Evêchés possessed by members of the Empire. Alsace, in its turn, from the treaty of Westphalia to the peace of Nimeguen, had offered analogous and still greater difficulties, this province of Teutonic tongue not having accepted the annexation to France as easily as the Walloon province of Trois-Evêchés, and the treaty of Westphalia presenting two contradictory clauses, one of which ceded to France all the rights of the Emperor and the Empire, and the other of which reserved the 'immediateness' of the lords and the ten cities of the prefecture of Alsace towards the Empire. …

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.

At last, on the complaints carried to the Germanic Diet by the ten Alsacian cities, joined by the German feudatories of Trois-Evêchés, Louis, who was then very conciliatory towards the Diet, consented to take for arbiters the King of Sweden and some princes and towns of Germany (1665). The arbitration was protracted for more than six years. In the beginning of 1672, the arbiters rendered an ambiguous decision which decided nothing and satisfied no one. War with Holland broke out meanwhile and changed all the relations of France with Germany. … Louis XIV. disarmed or took military occupation of the ten cities and silenced all opposition. … In the conferences of Nimeguen, the representatives of the Emperor and the Empire endeavored to return to the 'immediateness,' but the King would not listen to a renewal of the arbitration, and declared all debate superfluous. 'Not only,' said the French plenipotentiaries, 'ought the King to exercise, as in fact he does exercise, sovereign domain over the ten cities, but he might also extend it over Strasburg, for the treaty of Münster furnishes to this city no special title guaranteeing its independence better than that of the other cities.' It was the first time that Louis had disclosed this bold claim, resting on an inaccurate assertion. The Imperialists, terrified, yielded as regarded the ten cities, and Alsace was not called in question in the treaty of Nimeguen. Only the Imperialists protested, by a separate act, against the conclusions which might be drawn from this omission. The ten cities submitted and took to the King an oath of fidelity, without reservation towards the Empire; their submission was celebrated by a medal bearing the device: 'Alsatia in provinciam reducta' (1680). The treaty of Nimeguen was followed by divers measures destined to win the Alsacian population. … This wise policy bore its fruits, and Alsace, tranquillized, gave no more cause of anxiety to the French government. France was thenceforth complete mistress of the possessions which had been ceded to her by the Empire; this was only the first part of the work; the point in question now was, to complete these possessions by joining to them their natural appendages which the Empire had not alienated. The boundaries of Lower Alsace and the Messin district were ill defined, encroached upon, entangled, on the Rhine, on the Sarre, and in the Vosges, by the fiefs of a host of petty princes and German nobles. This could not be called a frontier. Besides, in the very heart of Alsace, the great city of Strasburg preserved its independence towards France and its connection with the Empire. A pacific method was invented to proceed to aggrandizements which it would seem could only be demanded by arms; a pacific method, provided that France could count on the weakness and irresolution of her neighbors; this was to investigate and revendicate everything which, by any title and at any epoch whatsoever, had been dependent on Alsace and Trois-Evêchés. {1237} We may comprehend whither this would lead, thanks to the complications of the feudal epoch; and it was not even designed to stop at the feudal system, but to go back to the times of the Frankish kings! Chambers of 'reannexation' were therefore instituted, in 1679, in the Parliament of Metz, and in the sovereign council of Alsace, with a mission which their title sufficiently indicated. … Among the nobles summoned, figured the Elector of Treves, for Oberstein, Falkenburg, etc.; the Landgrave of Hesse, for divers fiefs; the Elector Palatine, for Seltz and the canton situated between the Lauter and the Keich (Hogenbach, Germersheim, etc.); another prince palatine for the county of Veldentz: the Bishop of Speyer, for a part of his bishopric; the city of Strasburg, for the domains which it possessed beyond the Rhine (Wasselonne and Marlenheim); lastly, the King of Sweden, for the duchy of Deux-Ponts or Zweibrücken, a territory of considerable extent and of irregular form, which intersected the cis-Rhenish Palatinate. … By divers decrees rendered in March, August, and October, 1680, the sovereign council of Alsace adjudged to the King the sovereignty of all the Alsacian seigniories. The nobles and inhabitants were summoned to swear fidelity to the King, and the nobles were required to recognize the sovereign council as judge in last resort. The chamber of Metz acted on a still larger scale than the chamber of Breisach. April 12, 1680, it united to Trois-Evêchés more than 80 fiefs, the Lorraine marquisate of Pont-à-Mousson, the principality of Salm, the counties of Saarbourg and Veldentz, the seigniories of Sarrebourg, Bitche, Homburg, etc. The foundation of the new town of Sarre-Louis and the fortification of Bitche consolidated this new frontier; and not only was the course of the Sarre secured to France, but France, crossing the Sarre, encroached deeply on the Palatinate and the Electorate of Treves, posted herself on the Nahe and the Blies, and threw, as an advance-guard, on a peninsula of the Moselle, the fortress of Mont-Royal, half-way from Treves to Coblentz, on the territories of the county of Veldentz. The parliament of Franche-Comté, newly French as it was, zealously followed the example of the two neighboring courts. There was also a frontier to round towards the Jura. … The Duke of Würtemberg was required to swear allegiance to the King for his county of Montbéliard. … The acquisitions made were trifling compared with those which remained to be made. He [Louis XIV.] was not sure of the Rhine, not sure of Alsace, so long as he had not Strasburg, the great city always ready to throw upon the French bank of the river the armies of the Empire. France had long aimed at this conquest. As soon as she possessed Metz she had dreamed of Strasburg. … Though the King and Louvois had prevented Créqui from besieging the place during the war, it was because they counted on surprising it after peace. This great enterprise was most ably manœuvred." The members of the regency of the city were gained over, one by one. "The Imperial troops had evacuated the city pursuant to the treaty of Nimeguen; the magistrates dismissed 1,200 Swiss which the city had in its pay; then, on the threatening demands of the French, they demolished anew Fort Kehl, which they had rebuilt since its destruction by Créqui. When the fruit seemed ripe, Louis stretched out his hand to gather it. In the latter part of September, 1681, the garrisons of Lorraine, Franche-Comté, and Alsace put themselves in motion. … The 28th, 35,000 men were found assembled before the city; Baron de Montclar, who commanded this army, informed the magistrates that 'the sovereign chamber of Breisach having adjudged to the king the sovereignty of all Alsace, of which Strasburg was a member, his Majesty desired that they should recognize him as their sovereign lord, and receive a garrison." On the 30th the capitulation of the city was signed; on the 23d of October the King entered Strasburg in person and was received as its sovereign.

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV., volume 1, chapter 7.

FRANCE: A. D. 1680. Imprisonment of the "Man in the Iron Mask."

See IRON MASK.

FRANCE: A. D. 1681-1684. Threatening relations with the Turks. War with the Barbary States. Destructive bombardment of Algiers.

See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1664-1684.

FRANCE: A. D. 1681-1698. Climax of the persecution of the Huguenots. The Dragonnades. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The great exodus of French Protestants and the consequent national loss.

"Love and war suspended for a considerable time" the ambition of the king to extinguish heresy in his dominions and establish uniformity of religious worship; "but when Louis became satiated at once with glory and pleasure, and when Madame de Maintenon, the Duke de Beauvilliers, the Duke de Montausier, Bossuet, the Archbishop of Rheims, the Chancellor Letellier, and all the religious portion of the court, began to direct his now unoccupied and scrupulous mind to the interests of religion, Louis XIV. returned to his plans with renewed ardor. From bribery they proceeded to compulsion. Missionaries, escorted by dragoons, spread themselves at the instigation of Bossuet, and even of Fénelon, over the western, southern and eastern provinces, and particularly in those districts throughout which Protestantism, more firmly rooted among a more tenacious people, had as yet resisted all attempts at conversion by preaching. … Children from above seven years of age were authorized to abjure legally the religion of their fathers. The houses of those parents who refused to deliver up their sons and daughters were invaded and laid under contributions by the royal troops. The expropriation of their homes, and the tearing asunder of families, compelled the people to fly from persecution. The king, uneasy at this growing depopulation, pronounced the punishment of the galleys against those who sought liberty in flight; he also ordered the confiscation of all the lands and houses which were sold by those proprietors who were preparing to quit the kingdom. … Very soon the proscription was organized en masse: all the cavalry in the kingdom, who, on account of the peace, were unemployed, were placed at the disposal of the preachers and bishops, to uphold their missions [known as the dragonnades] with the sabre. … Bossuet approved of these persecutions. Religious and political faith, in his eyes, justified their necessity. His correspondence is full of evidence, while his actions prove that he was an accomplice: even his eloquence … overflowed with approbation of, and enthusiasm for, these oppressions of the soul and terrors of heresy."

A. de Lamartine, Memoirs of Celebrated Characters, volume 3: Bossuet.

{1238}

"The heroism of conviction, it has been truly said, was now displayed, not in resistance, but, if the paradox may be admitted, in flight. The outflow was for the moment arrested at the remonstrance of Colbert, now for the last time listened to in the royal councils, and by reason of the sympathy aroused by the fugitives in England: but not before 3,000 families had left the country. The retirement and death of the great minister were the signal for revived action, wherever an assembly of Huguenots larger than usual might warrant or colour a suspicion of rebellion. In such excuses, not as yet an avowed crusade, the troopers of the duke de Noailles were called in at Grenoble, Bourdeaux, and Nimes. Full forty churches were demolished in 1683, more than a hundred in 1684. But the system of military missions was not organized until in 1685 the defence of the Spanish frontier offered the opportunity for a final subjugation of the Huguenots of Bearn. The dragonnade passed through the land like a pestilence. From Guienne to Dauphine, from Poitou to Upper Languedoc, no place was spared. Then it pervaded the southeast country, about the Cevennes and Provence, and ravaged Lyons and the Pays de Gex. In the end, the whole of the north was assailed, and the failing edict of Nantes was annulled on the 1st of October. The sombre mind of Madame de Maintenon had postulated the Recall as a preliminary to the marriage which the king had already conceded. On the 21st of the month the great church at Charenton was doomed; and on the 22nd the 'unadvised and precipitate' Edict of Revocation was registered in the Chambre des Vacations. … The year 1685 is fitly identified with the depopulation of France. And yet, with a blindness that appears to us incredible, the government refused to believe in the desire or the possibility of escape. The penalties attached to capture on the road,—the galleys or the nunnery,—the vigilant watch at the frontier, the frigates cruising by every coast, all these difficulties seem to have persuaded Louvois that few would persist in risking flight. What these measures actually effected was doubtless to diminish the exodus, but in no marked degree. At length, it came to be thought that the emigration was due to its prohibition, as though the Huguenots must do a thing from mere perverseness. The watch was relaxed, and a result unlooked for issued. It was the signal of the greatest of the emigrations, that of 1688. … In the statistical question [as to the total number of the Huguenot exiles from France after the revocation of the edict of Nantes] it is impossible to arrive at a certain result; and the range which calculation or conjecture has allowed to successive historians may make one pause before attempting a dogmatic solution. Basnage, a year after the Recall, reckoned the emigrants above 150,000: next year Jurieu raised the total above 200,000. Writing later Basnage found between 300,000 and 400,000; and the estimate has been accepted by Sismondi. Lastly Voltaire, followed in our own day by Hase, counted 500,000. These are a few of the sober calculations, and their mean will perhaps supply the ultimate figure. I need only mention, among impossible guesses, that of Limiers, which raises the account to 800,000, because it has been taken up by the Prussian statesman Von Dohm. … The only historian who professes to have pursued the enquiry in exact detail is Capefigue; and from his minute scrutiny of the cartons des généralités, as prepared in the closing years of the 17th century, he obtains a computation of 225,000 or 230,000. Such a result must be accepted as the absolute minimum; for it was the plain interest of the intendants who drew up the returns, to put all the facts which revealed the folly of the king's action at the lowest cipher. And allowing the accuracy of Capefigue's work, there are other reasons for increasing his total. … We cannot set the emigration at a lower fraction than one-fifth of the total Huguenot society. If the body numbered two millions, the outflow will be 400,000. If this appear an extreme estimate, it must be remembered that one-fifth is also extreme on the other side. Reducing the former aggregate to 1,500,000, it will be clearly within the bounds of moderation to leave the total exodus a range between 300,000 and 350,000. How are we to distribute this immense aggregation? Holland certainly claims near 100,000; England, with Ireland and America, probably 80,000. Switzerland must have received 25,000; and Germany, including Brandenburg, thrice that number. The remainder will be made up from the north of Europe, and from the exiles whom commerce or other causes carried in isolated households elsewhere, and of whom no record is preserved to us. … The tale then of the emigrants was above 300,000. It follows to ask what was the material loss involved in their exodus. Caveirac is again the lowest in his estimate: he will not grant the export of more than 250,000 livres. He might have learnt from Count d'Avaux himself, that those least likely to magnify the sum confessed that by the very year of the Recall twenty million livres had gone out of the country; and it is certain that the wealthier merchants deferred their departure in order to carry as much as they could with them. Two hundred and fifty traders are said to have quitted Rouen in 1687 and 1688. Probably the actual amount was very far in excess of these twenty millions: and a calculation is cited by Macpherson which even affirms that every individual refugee in England brought with him on an average money or effects to the value of £60. … It will be needless to add many statistics of the injury caused by their withdrawal from France. Two great instances are typical of the rest. Lyons which had employed 18,000 silk-looms had but 4,000 remaining by the end of the century. Tours with the same interest had had 800 mills, 80,000 looms, and perhaps 4,000 work-people. Of its 3,000 ribbon-factories only sixty remained: Equally significant was the ruin of the woollen trade of Poitou. Little was left of the drugget-manufacture of Coulonges and Châtaigneraie, or of the industry in serges and bombazines at Thouars; and the export traffic between Châtaigneraie and Canada, by way of La Rochelle, was in the last year of the century absolutely extinct."

R. L. Poole, History of the Huguenots of the Dispersion, chapters 3 and 15.

ALSO IN: C. Weiss, History of the French Protestant Refugees.

N. Peyrat, The Pastors in the Wilderness, volume 1, chapters 5-7.

A. Maury, Memoirs of a Huguenot Family (Fontaine), chapters 4-9.

J. I. von Döllinger, Studies in European History, chapters 11-12.

C. W. Baird, History of the Huguenot Emigration to America, chapters 4-8 (volumes 1-2).

FRANCE: A. D. 1686. Claims upon the Palatinate. Formation of the League of Augsburg.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1686.

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FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1690. War of the League of Augsburg. The second devastation of the Palatinate.

"The interference of Lewis in Ireland on behalf of James [the Second, the dethroned Stuart king] caused William [prince of Orange, now King of England] to mature his plans for a great Continental confederacy against France. On May 12, 1689, William, as Stadtholder of the United Provinces, had entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with the Emperor against Lewis. On May 17, as King of England, he declared war against France; and on December 30 joined the alliance between the Emperor and the Dutch. His example was followed on June 6, 1690, by the King of Spain, and on October 20 of the same year by Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy. This confederation was called the 'Grand Alliance.' Its main object was declared to be to curb the power and ambition of Lewis XIV.; to force him to surrender his conquests, and to confine his territories to the limits agreed upon between him and the Emperor at the treaty of Westphalia (1648), and between France and Spain at the treaty of the Pyrenees (1659). The League of Augsburg, which William had with so much trouble brought about, had now successfully developed into the Grand Alliance."

E. Hale, The Fall of the Stuarts and Western Europe, chapter 14, section 5.

"The work at which William had toiled indefatigably during many gloomy and anxious years was at length accomplished. The great coalition was formed. It was plain that a desperate conflict was at hand. The oppressor of Europe would have to defend himself against England allied with Charles the Second King of Spain, with the Emperor Leopold, and with the Germanic and Batavian federations, and was likely to have no ally except the Sultan, who was waging war against the House of Austria on the Danube. Lewis had, towards the close of the preceding year, taken his enemies at a disadvantage, and had struck the first blow before they were prepared to parry it. But that blow, though heavy, was not aimed at the part where it might have been mortal. Had hostilities been commenced on the Batavian frontier, William and his army would probably have been detained on the continent, and James might have continued to govern England. Happily, Lewis, under an infatuation which many pious Protestants confidently ascribed to the righteous judgment of God, had neglected the point on which the fate of the whole civilised world depended, and had made a great display of power, promptitude, and energy, in a quarter where the most splendid achievements could produce nothing more than an illumination and a Te Deum. A French army under the command of Marshal Duras had invaded the Palatinate and some of the neighbouring principalities. But this expedition, though it had been completely successful, and though the skill and vigour with which it had been conducted had excited general admiration, could not perceptibly affect the event of the tremendous struggle which was approaching. France would soon be attacked on every side. It would be impossible for Duras long to retain possession of the provinces which he had surprised and overrun. An atrocious thought rose in the mind of Louvois, who, in military affairs, had the chief sway at Versailles. … The ironhearted statesman submitted his plan, probably with much management and with some disguise, to Lewis; and Lewis, in an evil hour for his fame, assented. Duras received orders to turn one of the fairest regions of Europe into a wilderness. Fifteen years had elapsed since Turenne had ravaged part of that fine country. But the ravages committed by Turenne, though they have left a deep stain on his glory, were mere sport in comparison with the horrors of this second devastation. The French commander announced to near half a million of human beings that he granted them three days of grace, and that, within that time, they must shift for themselves. Soon the roads and fields, which then lay deep in snow, were blackened by innumerable multitudes of men, women, and children flying from their homes. Many died of cold and hunger: but enough survived to fill the streets of all the cities of Europe with lean and squalid beggars, who had once been thriving farmers and shopkeepers. Meanwhile the work of destruction began. The flames went up from every marketplace, every hamlet, every parish church, every country seat, within the devoted provinces. The fields where the corn had been sown were ploughed up. The orchards were hewn down. No promise of a harvest was left on the fertile plains near what had once been Frankenthal. Not a vine, not an almond tree, was to be seen on the slopes of the sunny hills round what had once been Heidelberg. No respect was shown to palaces, to temples, to monasteries, to infirmaries, to beautiful works of art, to monuments of the illustrious dead. The far-famed castle of the Elector Palatine was turned into a heap of ruins. The adjoining hospital was sacked. The provisions, the medicines, the pallets on which the sick lay, were destroyed. The very stones on which Manheim had been built were flung into the Rhine. The magnificent Cathedral of Spires perished, and with it the marble sepulchres of eight Cæsars. The coffins were broken open. The ashes were scattered to the winds. Treves, with its fair bridge, its Roman baths and amphitheatre, its venerable churches, convents, and colleges, was doomed to the same fate. But, before this last crime had been perpetrated, Lewis was recalled to a better mind by the execrations of all the neighbouring nations, by the silence and confusion of his flatterers, and by the expostulations of his wife. … He relented; and Treves was spared. In truth he could hardly fail to perceive that he had committed a great error. The devastation of the Palatinate, while it had not in any sensible degree lessened the power of his enemies, had inflamed their animosity, and had furnished them with inexhaustible matter for invective. The cry of vengeance rose on every side. Whatever scruple either branch of the House of Austria might have felt about coalescing with Protestants was completely removed."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 11.

ALSO IN: H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV. (translated by M. L. Booth), volume 2, chapter 2.

S. A. Dunham, History of the German Empire, book 3, chapter 3 (volume. 3).

See, also, CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690.

FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1691. Aid to James II. in Ireland.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1689-1691.

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FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1691. Campaigns in the Netherlands and in Savoy.

"Our limits will not permit us to describe at any length the war between Louis XIV. and the Grand Alliance, which lasted till the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697, but only to note some of the chief incidents of the different campaigns. The Imperialists had, in 1689, notwithstanding the efforts it was still necessary to make against the Turks, brought an army of 80,000 men into the field, which was divided into three bodies under the command of the Duke of Lorraine, the Elector of Bavaria, and the Elector of Brandenburg; while the Prince of Waldeck, in the Netherlands, was at the head of a large Dutch and Spanish force, composed, however, in great part of German mercenaries. In this quarter, Marshal d'Humières was opposed to Waldeck, while Duras commanded the French army on the Rhine. In the south, the Duke of Noailles maintained a French force in Catalonia. Nothing of much importance was done this year; but on the whole the war went in favour of the imperialists, who succeeded in recovering Mentz and Bonn.

1690: This year, Marshal d'Humières was superseded by the Duke of Luxembourg, who infused more vigour into the French operations. … Catinat was sent this year into Dauphiné to watch the movements of the Duke of Savoy, who was suspected by the French Court, and not without reason, of favouring the Grand Alliance. The extravagant demands of Louis, who required Victor Amadeus to unite his troops with the army of Catinat, and to admit a French garrison into Vercelli, Verrua, and even the citadel of Turin itself, till a general peace should be effected, caused the Duke to enter into treaties with Spain and the Emperor, June 3d and 4th; and on October 20th, he joined the Grand Alliance by a treaty concluded at the Hague with England and the States-General. This last step was taken by Victor Amadeus in consequence of his reverses. He had sustained from Catinat in the battle of Staffarda (August 17th) a defeat which only the skill of a youthful general, his cousin the Prince Eugene, had saved from becoming a total rout. As the fruits of this victory, Catinat occupied Saluzzo, Susa, and all the country from the Alps to the Tanaro. During these operations another French division had reduced, without much resistance, the whole of Savoy, except the fortress of Montmélian. The only other event of importance during this campaign was the decisive victory gained by Luxembourg over Prince Waldeck at Fleurus, July 1st. The captured standards, more than a hundred in number, which Luxembourg sent to Paris on this occasion, obtained for him the name of the 'Tapassier de Notre Dame.' Luxembourg was, however, prevented from following up his victory by the orders of Louvois, who forbade him to lay siege to Namur or Charleroi. Thus, in this campaign, France maintained her preponderance on land as well as at sea by the victory off Beachy Head. …

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1690.

The Imperialists had this year lost one of their best leaders by the death of the Duke of Lorraine (April). He was succeeded as commander-in-chief by Maximilian Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria; but nothing of importance took place upon the Rhine.

1691: The campaign of this year was singularly barren of events, though both the French and English kings took a personal part in it. In March, Louis and Luxembourg, laid siege to Mons, the capital of Hainault, which surrendered in less than three weeks. King William, who was in the neighbourhood, could not muster sufficient troops to venture on its relief. Nothing further of importance was done in this quarter, and the campaign in Germany was equally a blank. On the side of Piedmont, Catinat took Nice, but, being confronted by superior numbers, was forced to evacuate Piedmont; though, by way of compensation, he completed the conquest of Savoy by the capture of Montmélian. Noailles gained some trifling successes in Spain; and the celebrated French corsair, Jean Bart, distinguished himself by his enterprises at sea. One of the most remarkable events of the year was a domestic occurrence, the death of Louvois."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 5, chapter 5 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, chapter 44 (volume 5).

FRANCE: A. D. 1692. The taking of Namur and the victory of Steinkirk, or Steenkerke.

Never perhaps in the whole course of his unresting life were the energies of William [of Orange] more severely taxed, and never did his great moral and intellectual qualities shine forth with a brighter lustre, than in the years 1692-93.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1692.

The great victory of La Hogue and the destruction of the flower of the French fleet did, it is true, relieve England of any immediate dread either of insurrection or invasion, and so far the prospect before him acquired a slight improvement towards the summer of 1692. But this was the only gleam of light in the horizon. … The great coalition of Powers which he had succeeded in forming to resist the ambition of Louis was never nearer dissolution than in the spring of 1692. The Scandinavian states, who had held aloof from it from the first, were now rapidly changing the benevolence of their neutrality into something not easily distinguishable from its reverse. The new Pope Innocent XII. showed himself far less amicably disposed towards William than his two predecessors. The decrepitude of Spain and the arrogant self-will of Austria were displaying themselves more conspicuously than ever. Savoy was ruled by a duke who was more than half suspected of being a traitor. … William did succeed in saving the league from dissolution, and in getting their armies once more into the field. But not, unfortunately, to any purpose. The campaign of the present year was destined to repeat the errors of the last, and these errors were to be paid for at a heavier cost. … The French king was bent upon the capture of the great stronghold of Namur, and the enemy, as in the case of Mons, were too slow in their movements and too ineffective in their dispositions to prevent it. Marching to the assault of the doomed city, with a magnificence of courtly pageantry which had never before been witnessed in warfare, Louis sat down before Namur, and in eight days its faint-hearted governor, the nominee of the Spanish viceroy of the Netherlands, surrendered at discretion. Having accomplished, or rather having graciously condescended to witness the accomplishment of this feat of arms, Louis returned to Versailles, leaving his army under the command of Luxembourg. The fall of Namur was a severe blow to the hopes of William, but yet worse disasters were in store for him. He was now pitted against one who enjoyed the reputation of the greatest general of the age, and William, a fair but by no means brilliant strategist, was unequal to the contest with his accomplished adversary. {1241} Luxembourg lay at Steinkirk, and William approaching him from a place named Lambeque, opened his attack upon him by a well-conceived surprise which promised at first to throw the French army into complete disorder. Luxembourg's resource and energy, however, were equal to the emergency. He rallied and steadied his troops with astonishing speed, and the nature of the ground preventing the allies from advancing as rapidly as they had expected, they found the enemy in a posture to receive them. The British forces were in the front, commanded by Count Solmes, the division of Mackay, a name now honourable for many generations in the annals of continental, no less than of Scottish, warfare, leading the way. These heroes, for so, though as yet untried soldiers, they approved themselves, were to have been supported by Count Solmes with a strong body of cavalry and infantry, but at the critical moment he failed them miserably, and his failure decided the fortunes of the day. … The division was practically annihilated. Its five regiments, 'Cutt's, Mackay's, Angus's, Graham's, and Leven's, all,' as Corporal Trim relates pathetically, cut to pieces, and so had the English Life-guards been too, had it not been for some regiments on the right, who marched up boldly to their relief, and, received the enemy's fire in their faces, before anyone of their own platoons discharged a musket.' Bitter was the resentment in the English army at the desertion of these gallant troops by Count de Solmes, and William gave vent to one of his rare outbursts of anger at the sight. We have it indeed on the authority above quoted—unimpeachable as first-hand tradition, for Sterne had heard the story of these wars at the knees of an eye-witness of and actor in them—that the King 'would not suffer the Count to come into his presence for many months after.' The destruction of Mackay's division had indeed decided the issue of the struggle. Luxembourg's army was being rapidly strengthened by reinforcements from that of Boufflers, and there was nothing for it but retreat. The loss on both sides had been great, but the moral effect of the victory was still greater. William's reputation for generalship, perhaps unduly raised by his recent exploits in Ireland, underwent a serious decline."

H. D. Traill, William the Third, chapter 10.

On the Rhine and on the Spanish frontier nothing of importance occurred during 1692. The Duke of Savoy gained some advantages on his side and invaded Dauphiny, without any material result. The invasion called into action a young heroine, Mademoiselle de La Tour-du-Pin, whose portrait has a place at Saint-Denis by the side of that of Jeanne D'Arc.

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV., volume 2, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: W. H. Torriano, William the Third, chapter 20.

FRANCE: A. D. 1693 (July). The Battle of Neerwinden, or Landen.

"Lewis had determined not to make any advance towards a reconciliation with the new government of England till the whole strength of his realm had been put forth in one more effort. A mighty effort in truth it was, but too exhausting to be repeated. He made an immense display of force at once on the Pyrenees and on the Alps, on the Rhine and on the Meuse, in the Atlantic and in the Mediterranean. That nothing might be wanting which could excite the martial ardour of a nation eminently high-spirited, he instituted, a few days before he left his palace for the camp, a new military order of knighthood, and placed it under the protection of his own sainted ancestor and patron. The cross of Saint Lewis shone on the breasts of the gentlemen who had been conspicuous in the trenches before Mons and Namur, and on the fields of Fleurus and Steinkirk. … On the 18th of May Lewis left Versailles. Early in June he was under the walls of Namur. The Princesses, who had accompanied him, held their court within the fortress. He took under his immediate command the army of Boufflers, which was encamped at Gembloux. Little more than a mile off lay the army of Luxemburg. The force collected in that neighbourhood under the French lilies did not amount to less than 120,000 men. Lewis had flattered himself that he should be able to repeat in 1693 the stratagem by which Mons had been taken in 1691 and Namur in 1692; and he had determined that either Liege or Brussels should be his prey. But William had this year been able to assemble in good time a force, inferior indeed to that which was opposed to him, but still formidable. With this force he took his post near Louvain, on the road between the two threatened cities, and watched every movement of the enemy. … Just at this conjuncture Lewis announced his intention to return instantly to Versailles, and to send the Dauphin and Boufflers, with part of the army which was assembled near Namur, to join Marshal Lorges who commanded in the Palatinate. Luxemburg was thunderstruck. He expostulated boldly and earnestly. Never, he said, was such an opportunity thrown away. … The Marshal reasoned: he implored: he went on his knees: but all was vain; and he quitted the royal presence in the deepest dejection. Lewis left the camp a week after he had joined it, and never afterwards made war in person. … Though the French army in the Netherlands had been weakened by the departure of the forces commanded by the Dauphin and Boufflers, and though the allied army was daily strengthened by the arrival of fresh troops, Luxemburg still had a superiority of force; and that superiority he increased by an adroit stratagem." He succeeded by a feint in inducing William to detach 20,000 men from his army and to send them to Liege. He then moved suddenly upon the camp of the allies, with 80,000 men, and found but 50,000 to oppose him. "It was still in the [English] King's power, by a hasty retreat, to put between his army and the enemy the narrow, but deep, waters of the Gette, which had lately been swollen by rains. But the site which he occupied was strong; and it could easily be made still stronger. He set all his troops to work. Ditches were dug, mounds thrown up, palisades fixed in the earth. In a few hours the ground wore a new aspect; and the King trusted that he should be able to repel the attack even of a force greatly outnumbering his own. … On the left flank, the village of Romsdorff rose close to the little stream of Landen, from which the English have named the disastrous day. On the right was the village of Neerwinden. Both villages were, after the fashion of the Low Countries, surrounded by moats and fences. "Notwithstanding the strength of the position held by the allies, and the valor with which they defended it, they were driven out of Neerwinden [July 29]—but only after the shattered village had been five times taken and retaken—and across the Gette, in confusion and with heavy loss. {1242} "The French were victorious: but they had bought their victory dear. More then 10,000 of the best troops of Lewis had fallen. Neerwinden was a spectacle at which the oldest soldiers stood aghast. The streets were piled breast high with corpses. Among the slain were some great lords and some renowned warriors. … The region, renowned as the battle field, through many ages, of the greatest powers of Europe, has seen only two more terrible days, the day of Malplaquet and the day of Waterloo. … There was no pursuit, though the sun was still high in the heaven when William crossed the Gette. The conquerors were so much exhausted by marching and fighting that they could scarcely move. … A very short delay was enough for William. … Three weeks after his defeat he held a review a few miles from Brussels. The number of men under arms was greater than on the morning of the bloody day of Landen: their appearance was soldierlike; and their spirit seemed unbroken. William now wrote to Heinsius that the worst was over. 'The crisis,' he said, 'has been a terrible one. Thank God that it has ended thus.' He did not, however, think it prudent to try at that time the event of another pitched field. He therefore suffered the French to besiege and take Charleroi; and this was the only advantage which they derived from the most sanguinary battle fought in Europe during the seventeenth century."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 20 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: G. Burnet, History of My Own Time, book 5 (1693), volume 4.

Duc de Saint-Simon, Memoirs (translated by St. John), volume 1, chapter 4.

FRANCE: A. D. 1693 (October). Defeat of the Duke of Savoy at Marsaglia.

"The great efforts made by Louis in the north prevented him from strengthening the army of Catinat sufficiently to act with energy against the Savoyard prince, and it was determined to restrict the campaign of 1693 to the defensive on the part of France. The forces of the duke had in the meantime been reinforced from Germany, and he opened the campaign with a brilliant and successful movement against Pignerol. … He is said to have entertained hopes of carrying the war in that one campaign to the very gates of Lyons; but the successes which inspired him with such expectations alarmed the court of France, and Louis detached in haste a large body of cavalry to reinforce Catinat. That general marched at once to fight the Duke of Savoy, who, presuming on his strength, suffered the French to pour out from the valley of Suza into the plain of Piedmont, abandoned the heights, and was consequently defeated at Marsaglia on the 4th of October. Catinat, however, could not profit by his victory; he was too ill supplied in every respect to undertake the siege of Coni, and the state of the French armies at this time marks as plainly that Louvois was dead, as the state of the finances speaks the loss of Colbert."

G. P. R. James, Life and Times of Louis XIV., volume 2, chapter 11.

FRANCE: A. D. 1694. Campaigns without battles. Operations at sea.

In 1694, King William was "in a position to keep an army afoot in the Netherlands stronger than any had hitherto been. It was reckoned at 31,800 horse, including a corps of dragoons, and 58,000 foot; so great a force had never been seen within the memory of man. All the best-known generals, who had hitherto taken part in the wars of western Europe, were gathered round him with their troops. The French army, with which the Dauphin, but not the King, was present, was not much smaller; it was once more led by Marshal Luxembourg. These two hosts lay over against one another in their camps for a couple of months; neither offered battle to the other. … This campaign is notable in the annals of the art of war for the skill with which each force pursued or evaded the other; but the results were limited to the recovery by the allies of that unimportant place, Huy. William had thought himself fortunate in having come out of the previous campaign without disaster: in this campaign the French were proud to have held their lines in presence of a superior force. On the coast also the French were successful in repelling a most vehement and perilous attack. They had been warned that the English were going to fall on Brest, and Vauban was sent down there in haste to organise the defence; and in this he was thoroughly successful. When the English landed on the coast in Camaret Bay (for the fort of that name had first to be taken) they were saluted by two batteries, which they had never detected, and which were so well placed that every shot told, and the grape-shot wounded almost every man who had ventured ashore. The gallant General, Talmash, was also hit, and ere long died of his wounds. The English fleet, which had come to bombard Brest, was itself bombarded from the walls. But though this great effort failed, the English fleet still held the mastery of the Channel: it also blockaded the northern coast of France. After Brest it attacked Dieppe, laying it almost entirely in ashes; thence it sailed to Havre, and St. Malo, to Calais, and Dunkirk. This was of great use in the conduct of the war. King William observes that had not the coasts been kept in a state of alarm, all the forces detained there for defensive purposes would have been thrown on the Netherlands. … But the most important result of the maritime war lay on another side. In May, 1694, Noailles pushed into Catalonia, supported by Tourville, who lay at anchor with the fleet in the Bay of Rosas. … It was of incalculable importance to Spain to be in alliance with the maritime powers. Strengthened by a Dutch fleet and some Spanish ships, Admiral Russell now appeared in the Mediterranean. He secured Barcelona from the French, who would never have been kept out of the city by the Spaniards alone. The approach of the English fleet had at this time the greatest influence in keeping the Duke of Savoy staunch to the confederation. In Germany the rise of the house of Hanover to the Electoral dignity had now caused most unpleasant complications. A shoal of German princes, headed by the King of Denmark, as a Prince of the Empire, and offended by the preference shown to Hanover, inclined, if not to alliance with France, at least to neutrality. … We can have no conception, and in this place we cannot possibly investigate, with what unbroken watchfulness King William, supported by Heinsius, looked after the German and the Northern courts, so as to keep their irritation from reacting on the course of the great war. … When the French, in June, 1694, crossed the Rhine, meaning, as they boasted with true Gallic arrogance, soon to dip their swords in the Danube, they found the Prince of Baden so well prepared, and posted so strongly near Wisloch, that they did not venture to attack him. … The general result is this: neither side was as yet really superior to the other: but the French power was everywhere checked and held within bounds by the arms and influence of William III."

L. von Ranke, History of England, 17th Century, book 20, chapter 6 (volume 5).

{1243}

FRANCE: A. D. 1695-1696. The end of the War of the League of Augsburg. Loss of Namur. Terms with Savoy. The Peace of Ryswick.

"Military and naval efforts were relaxed on all sides: on the Rhine the Prince of Baden and the Marechal de Lorges, both ill in health, did little but observe each other; and though the Duke of Savoy made himself master of Casal on the 11th July, 1695, no other military event of any consequence took place on the side of Italy, where Louis entered into negotiations with the duke, and succeeded, in the following year, in detaching him from the league of Augsburg. As the price of his defection the whole of his territories were to be restored to him, with the exception of Suza, Nice, and Montmeillan, which were promised to be delivered also on the signature of a general peace. Money was added to render the consent of a needy prince more ready. … The duke promised to obtain from the emperor a pledge that Italy should be considered as neutral ground, and if the allies refused such a pledge, then to join the forces of Savoy to those of France, and give a free passage to the French through his dominions. In consequence of this treaty … he applied to the emperor for a recognition of the neutrality of Italy, and was refused. He then hastened, with a facility which distinguished him through life, to abandon his friends and join his enemies, and within one month was generalissimo for the emperor in Italy fighting against France, and generalissimo for the King of France in Italy fighting against the emperor. Previous to this change, however, the King of England opened the campaign of 1695 in the Netherlands by the siege of Namur. The death of Luxemburg had placed the French army of Flanders under the command of the incapable Marshal Villeroi: and William, feeling that his enemy was no longer to be much respected, assumed at once the offensive. He concealed his design upon Namur under a variety of manœuvres which kept the French generals in suspense; and, then leaving the Prince of Vaudemont to protect the principal Spanish towns in Flanders, he collected his troops suddenly; and while the Duke of Bavaria invested Namur, he covered the operations of the siege with a considerable force. Villeroi now determined to attack the Prince of Vaudemont, but twice suffered him to escape: and then, after having apparently hesitated for some time how to drive or draw the King of England from the attack upon Namur, he resolved to bombard the city of Brussels, never pretending to besiege it, but alleging as his motive for a proceeding which was merely destructive, the bombardment of the maritime towns of France by the English. During three days he continued to fire upon the city, ruining a great part thereof, and then withdrew to witness the surrender of the citadel of Namur on the 2nd September, the town itself having capitulated on the 4th of the preceding month. As some compensation, though but a poor one, for the loss of Namur, and the disgrace of the French arms in suffering such a city to be captured in the presence of 80,000 men, Montal took Dixmude and Deynse in the course of June. … The only after-event of any importance which occurred in Flanders during this war, was the capture of Ath by the French, in the year 1697, while negotiations for peace were going on with activity at Ryswick. … Regular communications regarding peace having been once established, Ryswick, near the Hague, was appointed for the meeting of plenipotentiaries; and Harlay, Torci, and Callières appeared at that place as representatives of Louis. The articles which had been formerly sketched out at Utrecht formed the base of the treaties now agreed upon; and Louis yielded far more than could have been expected from one so proud and so successful."

G. P. R. James, Life and Times of Louis XIV., volume 2, chapter 11.

ALSO IN: T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, volume 3, chapter 5.

Sir J. Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, part 3, book 4 (volume 3).

FRANCE: A. D. 1697 (April). The sacking of Carthagena.

See CARTHAGENA: A. D. 1697.

FRANCE: A. D. 1697. The Peace of Ryswick.

"The Congress for the treaty or series of treaties that was to terminate the great European war, which had now lasted for upwards of nine years, was held at Ryswick, a château near the Hague. The conferences were opened in May, 1697. Among the countries represented were Sweden, Austria, France, Spain, England, Holland, Denmark and the various States of the German Empire. The treaties were signed, in severalty, between the different States, except Austria, in September and October, 1697, and with the Emperor, in November. The principal features of the treaty were, as between France and Spain, that, the former country was to deliver to Spain Barcelona, and other places in Catalonia; also various places which France had taken in the Spanish Netherlands, during the war, including Luxembourg and its Duchy, Charleroi, Mons and Courtrai. Various others were excepted, to be retained by France, as dependencies of French possessions. The principal stipulations of the treaty, as between France and Great Britain, were that France formally recognized William III. as lawful king of Great Britain, and agreed not to trouble him in the possession of his dominions, and not to assist his enemies, directly or indirectly. This article had particular relation to the partisans of the exiled Stuart king, then living in France. By another article, all places taken by either country in America, during the war, were to be relinquished, and the Principality of Orange and its estates situated in the south of France were to be restored to William. In the treaty with Holland, certain possessions in the East Indies were to be restored to the Dutch East India Company: and important articles of commerce were appended, among which the principle was laid down that free ships should make free goods, not contraband of war. By the treaty with the Emperor and the German States, the Treaties of Westphalia and Nymeguen were recognized as the basis of the Treaty of Ryswick, with such exceptions only as were to be provided in the latter treaty. France also was to give up all territory she had occupied or controlled before or during the war under the name of 'reunions,' outside of Alsace, but the Roman Catholic religion was to be preserved in Alsace as it then existed. {1244} This concession by France included among other places Freiburg, Brisach, and Treves; and certain restitutions were to be made by France, in favor of Spire, the Electors of Treves, and Brandenburg and the Palatinate; also, others in favor of certain of the smaller German Princes. The city of Strasburg, in return, was formally ceded to France, … and the important fort of Kehl was yielded to the Empire. The navigation of the Rhine was to be free to all persons. The Duke of Lorraine was to be restored to his possessions with such exceptions as were provided in the treaty. By the terms of this treaty, a more advantageous peace was given to Spain than she had any expectation of. … Not only were the places taken in Spain, including the numerous fortified places in Catalonia, yielded up, but also, with some exceptions, those in the Spanish Netherlands, and also the important territory of Luxembourg; some places were even yielded to Spain that France had gained under former treaties."

J. W. Gerard, The Peace of Utrecht, chapter 4.

"The restitutions and cessions [from France to Germany] comprised Treves, Germersheim, Deux-Ponts, Veldentz, Montbéliard, Kehl, Freiburg, Breisach, Philippsburg, the Emperor and the Empire ceding in exchange Strasbourg to the King of France in complete sovereignty. … Louis XIV. had consented somewhat to relax the rigor of the treaty of Nimeguen towards the heir of the Duchy of Lorraine, nephew of the Emperor by his mother; he restored to the young Duke Leopold his inheritance in the condition in which Charles IV. had possessed it before the French conquest of 1670; that is to say, he restored Nancy, allowing only the ramparts of the Old Town to remain, and razing all the rest of the fortifications without the power of restoring them; he kept Marsal, an interior place calculated to hold Lorraine in check, and also Sarre-Louis, a frontier-place which separated Lorraine from the Germanic provinces; he restored Bitche and Homburg dismantled, without power to reestablish them, and kept Longwy in exchange for a domain of similar value in one of the Trois-Evêchés; finally, he no longer demanded, as at Nimeguen, four great strategic routes through Lorraine, and consented that the passage should always be open to his troops. The House of Lorraine was thus reestablished in its estates after twenty-seven years of exile."

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV., volume 2, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: L. von Ranke, History of England, 17th Century, book 20, chapter 11 (volume 5).

See, also, CANADA: A. D. 1692-1697; and NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1694-1697.

FRANCE: A. D. 1698-1712. The colonization of Louisiana. Broad claims to the whole valley of the Mississippi.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1698-1712.

FRANCE: A. D. 1700. Bequest of the Spanish crown to a French royal prince.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1698-1700.

FRANCE: A. D. 1701-1702. Provocation of the Second Grand Alliance and War of the Spanish Succession.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1701-1702, and ENGLAND: A. D. 1701-1702.

FRANCE: A. D. 1702-1710. The Camisard rising of the French Protestant's in the Cévennes.

"The movement known as the War of the Camisards is an episode of the history of Protestantism in France which, though rarely studied in detail and perhaps but partially understood, was not devoid of significance. When it occurred, in the summer of 1702, a period of little less than 17 years had elapsed since Louis XIV., by his edict of Fontainebleau, October, 1685, solemnly revoked the great and fundamental law enacted by his grandfather, Henry IV., for the protection of the adherents of the Reformed faith, known in history as the Edict of Nantes. During the whole of that period the Protestants had submitted, with scarcely an attempt at armed resistance, to the proscription of their tenets: … The majority, unable to escape from the land of oppression, remained at home … nearly all of them cherishing the confident hope that the king's delusion would be short-lived, and that the edict under which they and their ancestors had lived for three generations would, before long, be restored to them with the greater part, if not the whole, of its beneficent provisions. Meanwhile, all the Protestant ministers having been expelled from France by the same law that prohibited the expatriation of any of the laity, the people of the Reformed faith found themselves destitute of the spiritual food they craved. True, the new legislation affected to regard that faith as dead, and designated all the former adherents of Protestantism, without distinction, as the 'New Converts,' 'Nouveaux Convertis.' And, in point of fact, the great majority had so far yielded to the terrible pressure of the violent measures brought to bear upon them … that they had consented to sign a promise to be 're-united' to the Roman Catholic Church, or had gone at least once to mass. But they were still Protestants at heart. … Under these circumstances, feeling more than ever the need of religious comfort, now that remorse arose for a weak betrayal of conscientious conviction, the proscribed Protestants, especially in the south of France, began to meet clandestinely for divine worship in such retired places as seemed most likely to escape the notice of their vigilant enemies. … It was not strange that in so exceptional a situation, a phase of religious life and feeling equally exceptional should manifest itself. I refer to that appearance of prophetic inspiration which attracted to the province of Vivarais and to the Cévennes Mountains the attention of all Europe. … Historically … the influence of the prophets of the Cévennes was an important factor in the Protestant problem of the end of the 17th and the commencement of the 18th centuries. … Various methods were adopted to put an end to the prophets with their prophecies, which were for the most part denunciatory of Rome as Antichrist and foreshadowed the approaching fall of the papacy. But this form of enthusiasm had struck a deep root and it was hard to eradicate it. Imprisonment, in convent or jail, was the most common punishment, especially in the case of women. Not infrequently to imprisonment was, added corporal chastisement, and the prophets, male and female, were flogged until they might be regarded as fully cured of their delusion. … But no utterances of prophets, however fervid and impassioned, would have sufficed to occasion an uprising of the inhabitants of the Cévennes Mountains, had it not been for the virulent persecution to which the latter found themselves exposed at the hands of the provincial authorities directly instigated thereto by the clergy of the established church. {1245} For it must be noticed that a large part of the population of the Cévennes was still Protestant, and made no concealment of the fact, even though the king's ministers affected to call them 'New Catholics,' or 'New Converts.' The region over which the Camisard war extended with more or less violence comprised six episcopal dioceses, which, in 1698, had an aggregate population of about two-thirds of a million of souls. Of these souls, though Protestantism had been dead in the eye of the law for 13 years, fully one-fourth were still Protestant. … The war may be said to have begun on the 24th of July, 1702, when the Abbé du Chayla, a noted persecutor, was killed in his house, at Pont de Montvert, by a band of 40 or 50 of the 'Nouveaux Convertis,' whom he had driven to desperation by his cruelty to their fellow believers. If we regard its termination to be the submission of Jean Cavalier, the most picturesque, in the month of May, 1704, the war lasted a little less than two years. But, although the French government had succeeded, rather by craft than by force, in getting rid of the most formidable of its opponents … it was not until five or six years later—that is, until 1709 or 1710—that … comparative peace was finally restored. … During the first months of the insurrection the exploits of the malcontents were confined to deeds of destruction accomplished by companies of venturesome men, who almost everywhere eluded the pursuit of the enemy by their superior knowledge of the intricacies of the mountain woods and paths. The track of these companies could easily be made out; for it was marked by the destruction of vicarages and rectories, by the smoke of burned churches, too often by the corpses of slain priests. The perpetrators of these acts of violence soon won for themselves some special designations, to distinguish them from the more passive Protestants who remained in their homes, taking no open part in the struggle. … About the close of 1702, however, or the first months of 1703, a new word was coined for the fresh emergency, and the armed Protestants received the appellation under which they have passed into history—the Camisards. Passing by all the strange and fanciful derivations of the word which seem to have no claim upon our notice, unless it be their evident absurdity, we have no difficulty in connecting it with those nocturnal expeditions which were styled 'Camisades'; because the warriors who took advantage of the darkness of the night to ride out and explore or force the enemy's entrenchments, sometimes threw over their armor a shirt that might enable them to recognize each other. Others will have it that, though the name was derived from the same article of apparel—the 'camisa' or shirt—it was applied to the Cévenol bands for another reason, namely," that when they found opportunities, they carried off clean linen from the villages and left their soiled garments in exchange. The final overthrow of the Camisards "was not accomplished without the employment of 100,000 troops, certainly far more than ten times the total number ever brought into the field by the Camisards. … Not less than three officers of the highest grade in the service, marshals of France, were successively appointed to put down a revolt which it might have been expected a simple colonel could suffice to quell—M. de Broglie being succeeded by the Marshal de Montrevel, the Marshal de Montrevel by the Marshal de Villars, and the Marshal de Villars by the Marshal de Berwick."

H. M. Baird, The Camisard Uprising (Papers of the American Society of Church History, volume 2, pages 13-34).

ALSO IN: Mrs. Bray, The Revolt of the Protestants of the Cevennes.

N. Peyrat, The Pastors in the Wilderness.

S. Smiles, The Huguenots in France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, chapters 5-8.

FRANCE: A. D. 1702-1711. The War of the Spanish Succession in America (called Queen Anne's War).

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1710; and CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713.

FRANCE: A. D. 1702-1713. The War of the Spanish Succession in Europe.

See ITALY: A. D. 1701-1713; SPAIN: A.D. 1702, to 1707-1710; GERMANY: A. D. 1702, to 1706-1711; NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704, to 1710-1712.

FRANCE: A. D. 1702-1715. Renewed Jesuitical persecution of the Jansenists. The odious Bull Unigenitus and its tyrannical enforcement.

See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS: A. D. 1702-1715.

A. D. 1710. The War of the Spanish Succession: Misery of the nation. Overtures for Peace. Conferences at Gertruydenberg.

"France was still reduced to extreme and abject wretchedness. Her finances were ruined. Her people were half starving. Marlborough declared that in the villages through which he passed in the summer of 1710, at least half the inhabitants had perished since the beginning of the preceding winter, and the rest looked as if they had come out of their graves. All the old dreams of French conquests in the Spanish Netherlands, in Italy, and in Germany were dispelled, and the French generals were now struggling desperately and skilfully to defend their own frontier. … In 1710, while the Whig ministry [in England] was still in power, but at a time when it was manifestly tottering to its fall, Lewis had made one more attempt to obtain peace by the most ample concessions. The conferences were held at the Dutch fortress of Gertruydenberg. Lewis declared himself ready to accept the conditions exacted as preliminaries of peace in the preceding year, with the exception of the article compelling Philip within two months to cede the Spanish throne. He consented, in the course of the negotiations, to grant to the Dutch nearly all the fortresses of the French and Spanish Netherlands, including among others Ypres, Tournay, Lille, Furnes, and even Valenciennes, to cede Alsace to the Duke of Lorraine, to destroy the fortifications of Dunkirk, and those on the Rhine from Bale to Philipsburg. The main difficulty was on the question of the Spanish succession. … The French troops had already been recalled from Spain, and Lewis consented to recognise the Archduke as the sovereign, to engage to give no more assistance to his grandchild, to place four cautionary towns in the hands of the Dutch as a pledge for the fulfilment of the treaty, and even to pay a subsidy to the allies for the continuance of the war against Philip. The allies, however, insisted that he should join with them in driving his grandson by force of arms from Spain, and on this article the negotiations were broken off."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century, chapter 1.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1710-1712.

{1246}

FRANCE: A. D. 1713-1714. Ending of the War of the Spanish Succession. The Peace of Utrecht and the Treaty of Rastadt.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

FRANCE: A. D. 1714. The desertion of the Catalans.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1714.