unexpectedly on the
right bank of the intermediary branch of the Rhine, between the Wahal and
the Yssel. The Hollanders were expecting the enemy at the ford of, the
Yssel, being more easy to pass; they were taken by surprise; the king's
cuirassier regiment dashed into the river, and crossed it partly by
fording and partly by swimming; the resistance was brief; meanwhile the
Duke of Longueville was killed, and the Prince of Conde was wounded for
the first time in his life. "I was present at the passage, which was
bold, vigorous, full of brilliancy, and glorious for the nation," writes
Louis XIV. Arnheim and Deventer had just surrendered to Turenne and
Luxembourg; Duisbourg resisted the king for a few days; Monsieur was
besieging Zutphen. John van Witt was for evacuating the Hague and
removing to Amsterdam the centre of government and resistance; the Prince
of Orange had just abandoned the province of Utrecht, which was
immediately occupied by the French; the defensive efforts were
concentrated upon the province of Holland; already Naarden, three leagues
from Amsterdam, was in the king's hands. "We learn the surrender of
towns before we have heard of their investment," wrote Van Witt. A
deputation from the States was sent on the 22d of June to the king's
headquarters to demand peace. Louis XIV. had just entered Utrecht,
which, finding itself abandoned, opened its gates to him. On the same
day, John van Witt received in a street of the Hague four stabs with a
dagger from the hand of an assassin, whilst the city of Amsterdam, but
lately resolved to surrender and prepared to send its magistrates as
delegates to Louis XIV., suddenly decided upon resistance to the bitter
end. " If we must perish, let us at any rate be the last to fall,"
exclaimed the town-councillor Walkernier, "and let us not submit to the
yoke it is desired to impose upon us until there remain no means of
securing ourselves against it." All the sluices were opened and the
dikes cut. Amsterdam floated amidst the waters. "I thus found myself
under the necessity of limiting my conquests, as regarded the province of
Holland, to Naarden, Utrecht, and Werden," writes Louis XIV. in his
unpublished Memoire touching the campaign of 1672, and he adds, with rare
impartiality, "the resolution to place the whole country under water was
somewhat violent; but what would not one do to save one's self from
foreign domination? I cannot help admiring and commending