lands their
industries, their wealth, and their bitter resentments. Protestant
Europe, indignant, opened her doors to these martyrs to conscience,
living witnesses of the injustice and arbitrary power of Louis XIV.
All the princes felt themselves at the same time insulted and threatened
in respect of their faith as well as of their puissance. In the early
months of 1686, the league of Augsburg united all the German princes,
Holland, and Sweden; Spain and the Duke of Savoy were not slow to join
it. In 1687, the diet of Ratisbonne refused to convert the twenty years'
truce into a definitive peace. By his haughty pretensions the king gave
to the coalition the support of Pope Innocent XI.; Louis XIV. was once
more single-handed against all, when he invaded the electorate of Cologne
in the month of August, 1686. Philipsburg, lost by France in 1676, was
recovered on the 29th of October; at the end of the campaign, the king's
armies were masters of the Palatinate. In the month of January, 1689,
war was officially declared against Holland, the emperor, and the empire.
The commander-in-chief of the French forces was intrusted to the dauphin,
then twenty-six years of age. "I give you an opportunity of making your
merit known," said Louis XIV. to his son: "exhibit it to all Europe, so
that when I come to die it shall not be perceived that the king is dead."

The dauphin was already tasting the pleasures of conquest, and the
coalition had not stirred. They were awaiting their chief; William of
Orange was fighting for them in the very act of taking possession of the
kingdom of England. Weary of the narrow-minded and cruel tyranny of
their king, James II., disquieted at his blind zeal for the Catholic
religion, the English nation had summoned to their aid the champion of
Protestantism; it was in the name of the political liberties and the
religious creed of England that the Prince of Orange set sail on the 11th
of November, 1688; on the flags of his vessels was inscribed the proud
device of his house, I will maintain; below were the words, _Pro
libertate et Protestante religione._ William landed without obstacle at
Torbay, on the 15th of November; on the 4th of January, King James,
abandoned by everybody, arrived in France, whither he had been preceded
by his wife, Mary of Modena, and the little Prince of Wales; the
convention of the two Houses in England proclaimed William and Mary
_kings_ (rois--? king and queen); the Pr